The Windsors (Channel 4, 9pm)

THIS six-part series celebrates The Queen’s 90th birthday by crowning comedic royalty with Harry Enfield as HRH Prince Charles and Haydn Gwynne as Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall. Hugh Skinner (from W1A) is Prince “Wills” William, Duke of Cambridge, with Louise Ford (from Crashing) as his Queen consort-in-waiting, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.

Morgana Robinson appears as Kate’s sister, Pippa and Richard Goulding (of Fresh Meat) takes his place fifth in line to the throne as Prince Harry. Ellie White and Celeste Dring become Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, while Katy Wix (from Miranda) and Tim Wallers (You, Me & The Apocalypse) have the task of portraying Fergie and Prince Andrew, with Matthew Cottle (Man Down) making up the numbers as Prince Edward.

It’s written by the co-creators of Star Stories, Bert Tyler-Moore and George Jeffrie, and treats The House of Windsor as even more of a soap opera than appears in the tabloids and on-line. It’s time to run riot over who really controls the sceptre in Charles and Camilla’s marriage; what the Royals really think of Kate and if Wills actually wants to be King. Harry is put in the precarious position of lusting after Pippa and imaginations will work overtime in trying to explain Beatrice and Eugenie actually do for a living.

Head of comedy Phil Clarke says: “In The Windsors, our much-loved Royal family is re-imagined through the lens of a soap opera, and although the stories are completely fictional, some are inspired by real events. As a result, writers Bert and George have outdone even the funniest, most ludicrous issue of Hello! magazine ever.”

Tyler-Moore explains: "It's the real life Windsors, but done as if they're in something like Dynasty or Dallas. It's a very heightened and very silly parody version of reality, I suppose. We know the real Wills flies a helicopter, so we've exaggerated that to the Nth degree and have stories where our Wills is a real action-hero guy flying a helicopter and saving people's lives and behaving like a Tom Cruise-type character."

The writers claim there was no agenda to create the comedy to coincide with the Queen's birthday. "We never really thought ‘Oh wow, the Royal Family are crying out to be done’. They're an institution that is always there. I think we just thought it was a funny idea, and then I suppose when we started thinking about it more seriously, we realised that they hadn't really been done properly since Spitting Image, and that's a long, long time ago. That's 25-30 years ago now."

The opening edition finds Kate attempting to win the royals over by helping Harry with his fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace. However, she'll have to contend with a gate-crashing Sarah Ferguson and a scheming Camilla, who is out to sabotage her efforts.

Two Doors Down (BBC2, 10pm)

AS the current series of the sitcom comes to an end, it seems Eric and Beth are ready for a break from their neighbours as they decide to celebrate the encouraging results of Eric's latest health check by booking their first holiday in seven years. Cathy and Colin don't need to get away to relax though, especially now they have a hot tub in their back garden. They are keen to show it off, so they invite everyone around for a party - we'd better hope Eric and Beth haven't already packed their swimsuits.

Artsnight (BBC2, 11.15pm)

New series. In the 19th Century, Thomas Carlyle devised the Great Man theory, a view that history is formed by the impact of certain charismatic and powerful men, embodied in later years by the likes of Picasso, Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer. Comedian and novelist David Baddiel travels to New York to see if there are any such men left, or whether the idea is now untenable. He meets Martin Amis and Katie Roiphe to question the theory of greatness.