MOST TV comedy is derivative, predictable and, quite frankly, not funny.

I know he’s incredibly popular, but I could watch an entire Michael McIntyre performance and not laugh once. Maybe that says more about me . . . as several people told me this week.

Most good comedy is dead (Bill Hicks) or not generally shown on mainstream TV (Emo Philips), and, while Jason Manford is okay, he is hardly likely to cause death by laughter, but then the hosts of these programmes never do.

Dame Edna Everage is as you would expect, Russell Kane’s observational comedy is average, comedian Jason Byrne was pretty good, mocking a “posh boy” who he performed a decent levitational trick on, but the real highlight was Aussie three-piece “boy band” Axis of Awesome.

Their 4 Chord Song has received more than 10 million hits on YouTube and it’s not hard to see why.

Tonight, though, they perform How To Write A Love Song, a brilliant dissection of the kind of bilge the likes of Westlife, Boyzone et al have been proferring in the name of entertainment for years.

There’s an older one, a larger one and a good-looking one, and the moves they make and the style of the song are just far enough away from those of genuine “bands” to make this exceptionally funny.

Lyrically it’s great. Take, for instance, as the singer introduces another member who steps forward to the mic to deliver the heartfelt lyrics: “This is my back-up and he sings quite breathilly (breathilly), he takes the words I sing and sings them after me (sings em after me), he emphasises words and sings them emphatically (I sing EMPHATICALLY), now listen to us singing acapella harmony.”

Or: “Baby girl, I love you so great that I wrote you this song and to show you how much I really care it sounds like every other one.”

Or: “Girl You might think it’s weird girl/that three guys are singing about the one girl girl/But let me tell you something girl it’s not weird at all/In fact girl it’s an industry standard and it happens all the time (Happens all the time).”

Singer Paloma Faith looks like she’s having a great time through all of this — and so she should be as she gets to watch for free before being paid to do her bit.

What else would she be doing on a Sunday night?