EVEN I recall a greater time for Saturday night TV, when variety was king. Jim’ll Fix It, Noel’s House Party, the Generation Game, crikey, even You’ve Been Framed (the proper version with Beadle) and the like, to name a few.

Before reality TV stole the show, Saturday nights were about fun, silliness, making fools of people (OK, so maybe reality TV kept one thing going), rather than singing, dancing, ice skating and voting.

But there seems to be a hark-back to those days in the form of Lee Mack’s All Star Cast (Saturday, 9.50pm), currently showing on BBC1.

Forgive me for being a bit of a latecomer to this show but I thoroughly enjoyed it as it reminded of those fun programmes of my childhood.

As the name suggests, this show gets the audience involved in sketches and competitions, much like Noel Edmonds was doing when I was a kid.

It does the same with celebrities too – seeing shock rock legend Alice Cooper dressed up as a woman on last Saturday’s programme was hilarious.

Combining silly sketches with audience participation, chat, music and Lee Mack’s humour makes this a real winner if you ask me – and something that Saturday night TV has been missing for a long time.

This weekend sees Lee welcome comedian Rhod Gilbert, Dragon Theo Paphitis and last, but not least, Katie Price. I can’t wait to see what he gets them to do.

The only crime is that it’s on so late in the evening.

Stolen (Sunday, 9pm, BBC1) looked like a welcome break from cuddly cockle-warming Sunday night TV.

Starring a hugely-talented actor in the form of Damian Lewis (who shot to fame in the monumental Band of Brothers 10 years ago) it promised a lot, and started well.

A fast-paced start to this examination of traffickers who bring children into the UK to be exploited was hard-hitting and brought home what a huge issue this is, and, in a lot of cases, how powerless the government and police are to do much about it.

It was uncomfortable to watch the stories of three separate children develop at times and was gripping at points but, instead of building to some sort of shocking conclusion, it failed to hold my interest and petered out somewhat.

Having said that, it’s definitely a subject in need of tackling and hopefully someone will do so again soon.

And finally a mention for an old favourite of mine, Neighbours (weekdays, 5.30pm, Channel 5).

Still going strong on Channel 5, it’s the old guard that is shining at the moment, with Toadie battling to get his life back on track after discovering that his adopted son, Callum, is in fact that of his girlfriend, Sonya, while a welcome return by Harold (remember him? He fell off a cliff and came back quite some years later when everyone thought he was dead) and sparring partner Lou have made for some classic fun and frolics as Harold gets hitched.

Talking of the old guard, Paul Robinson, the only remaining character who appeared in the very first episode 26 years ago, is still going strong and wreaking havoc around Erinsborough.

It’s been half an hour of escapism every day since I was very young and still makes me happy after work. Long may it continue.