KEITH Barret is "Britain's leading relationship therapist and chauffeur ". His job is to drive you safely through the traffic jams and rat runs of marriage, armed with the knowledge of the failure of his own relationship with Marion, as seen in the cult BBC2 series Geoff & Marion.

Happy-go-unlucky Barret takes his job very seriously. "This is not a show, it's a talk," he says, admonishing the audience for laughing at him. "Please come back with a more mature approach," he scolds.

Barret is a diminutive Welshman, as buttoned up as his suit, haplessly covering up his bald patch when he turns away. He is a tragicomic character, a dispenser of everyday advice with a sense of humour failure in the tradition of Sheffield's John Shuttleworth.

Like Shuttleworth, he is a comic conduit for a quicker mind. Shuttleworth is Graham Fellowes'ever mellow fellow; Barret is Rob Brydon's double-edged alter ego. Barret's humour comes from his cringing, nave bluntness, causing offence where none is intended, like Frankie Howerd or Mrs Merton before him, while also finding himself funny in the manner of Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge.

Brydon uses him like a cheeky puppet and he manipulates his audience superbly in Making Divorce Work, a talk with slides that turns into a face to-face confessional chat with long-married York couple Malcolm and Brenda. Keith Barret may be a failure in marriage and therapy, but his crafty show is a chuckling success.

Updated: 11:06 Tuesday, June 28, 2005