Pudsey the Dog - The Movie review . . . Ruff!

You might like to push your fists into your eyes and rotate them furiously like a Chuckle Brother who’s just seen something he can’t quite believe. After doing that, toss a half-bottle of vodka over your shoulder in the manner of a comedy drunk faced with one too many pseudo-hallucinatory situations.

Yes, a feature film starring Pudsey the dog – winner of Britain's Got Talent in 2012 – really does exist, and all its jokes have been imported unaltered from 1972.

This is not altogether a terrible thing. Of course, Pudsey the Dog: The Movie is appalling. The producer (one "S Cowell", apparently) was never going to hire a film-maker inclined towards dangerous creative gambles. But it is appalling in a quaint manner.

It’s appalling like those souvenir dolls whose voluminous skirts used to cover lavatory rolls. It’s appalling like Jive Bunny records and battered sausages. You might not want to experience the thing yourself, but some part of you will be glad that it exists for others.

Like Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie, which it is no worse than, the new feature from Nick Moore (Horrid Henry: The Movie) accesses the oldest plot in the comedy anthology: the evil developer who wishes to land a commercial monstrosity on the cuddly heroes' lovely home. Poor old John Sessions plays the baddie. Jessica Hynes is the nice mummy. It being the law that Olivia Colman appear in every British film, that actor voices a horse.

Rather unkindly, Ashleigh Butler, Pudsey's trainer, is not asked to appear in person, but her charge reminds us why he became such a star two years ago. Pudsey walks on two legs. He nuzzles laps in an obvious search for concealed treats. He walks on two legs. He looks at the sky. He walks on two legs.

Oh dear. I fear the poor creature isn’t going to be around much longer than that Hungarian shadow-puppet troupe. Mind you, now eight years old, he’s probably close to retirement age anyway.