John McLellan: Alex Salmond's Russia Today show could be a cult comedy

No surprise I've had little inclination to watch the Alex Salmond Show on Russia Today

Alex Salmond's show has been given the bodyswerve by Nicola Sturgeon

But when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon admitted this week that she’d never seen it I finally decided to see what she’s been missing and if it’s got any better since the first poor reviews.

After all, 16,000 viewers can’t be wrong.

It’s got a kind of home-spun charm, with production values that make the old STV Edinburgh look like the Graham Norton Show.

The eponymous host shows just how difficult it is to pull off the old Bob Monkhouse adage “if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made”, while Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh has the remarkable talent of making political discourse sound like an episode of Rainbow.

Maybe those cunning Russians hope it’s becoming a cult comedy. Na Zdorovie!