WITH monkey-faced Robbie Williams plastered all over TV at the moment there seems to be a strong counter-argument to week-long series Nobody Likes A Smartass (BBC2).

My wife initially groaned at the idea of watching celebrity know-alls, but was soon hooting with laughter thanks to Giles Brandreth's unseating as an alleged Shakespeare expert. Host Jo Brand, who is to reading auto-cues what Fiona Bruce is to stand-up comedy, made the odd telling remark as the experts were pitted against an invited city audience.

"Cambridge are useless at the boat race, so they can make up for it by winning this," said my wife, fully entering into the occasion.

Sadly, music mastermind Stuart Maconie proved to have the mental stamina of an Oxford eight.

As the week progressed, I became a little puzzled by the fact that sports brainbox Danny Kelly and Ms Brand never appeared to change their clothes.

Could the whole thing have been filmed in a day? You also couldn't help noticing that most of the Smartasses were men.

Then again, Janet Street-Porter proved a toothless competitor (and that takes some doing in her case) by managing just one correct answer on the subject of Great English Walks.

She didn't even know that Helmsley was part of the Dales Walk, for goodness sake.

Back to the singer once voted the world's sexiest man. There's Only One Robbie Williams (BBC1, Sunday) took us from the early days of a pop star who turned up for an amateur audition for the Artful Dodger in full costume to his current obsession with US success.

He's even bought a house next door to Tom Jones in Los Angeles to show his determination.

"Why the hell should I want to watch a programme about Robbie Williams, the smart aleck," declared my wife, who proceeded to perch on the sofa and view every moment

. Such is the attraction of the performer who sees himself as a Norman Wisdom-style court jester of song rather than the Mr Cool Frank Sinatra he so admires.

The enigmatic songster from Stoke has recently dumped songwriting partner Guy Chambers for asking for a pay rise after Williams' landed an £80m deal with EMI.

That's a decision he'll probably live to regret after Angels, Millennium and Strong became karaoke anthems.

Robbie's fans get another chance to watch him Live At Knebworth on Channel 4 today, having decamped from BBC1 commitments.

Could that be why the Beeb's profile was a little barbed?

Another smartass candidate was Dave Chipping, a slightly shady nightclub manager, who opened six-part How I Made My Property Fortune (BBC2, Wednesday).

Apparently he switched from a humble London semi to a five-bedroomed Tudor-style. detached in Esher worth £1.5m.

His method was to bang on the door of a homeowner on the first of each month and ask to buy his orchard for a building plot.

Surprisingly, the former orchard owner didn't feature in the programme and Dave's total inability to carry out basic DIY on a £200,000 self-build project seemed to have been skimmed over as well.

The result was impressive, but I couldn't help feeling that host Dominic Littlewood should stick to discussing the merits of second-hand motors.

Published: 02/08/2003