Perhaps part of the problem is that many stand-ups are themselves a little suspicious of their musical comedy colleagues. Time Out was uncharacteristically scathing about their comedy skills and in the chat-room of the Chortle Web site one comedian put them forward as the worst comedians ever. It's Been a Bad World. The direction Benn would like to take it is sending up videos of hit pop songs. But he says this has become more expensive to do than it was in the eighties because of the higher production values of the original videos.
Audiences find it very funny and that's what matters.
That may be so. But perhaps the reason it is so phenomenally difficult for musical comedy to make it on to TV is that virtually nothing musical comedians do sounds vaguely original. If they write new comic songs, they are accused of being old-fashioned, or raves from the grave of vaudeville. But if they try to be bang up to date by ridiculing pop culture, what they are doing is in itself derivative. It may be a mission impossible, but musical comedians need to find a third way, where they don't sound like they have been dusted down from a folk club or comedy karaoke contest.