by William Gallagher BBC News Online

Jeffrey Archer returns to the limelight again as the BBC air a fictional satire about the extraordinary life of the disgraced Lord.

It should not work but it does: Jeffrey Archer - The Truth is a one-joke farce about the life of the disgraced ex-minister and novelist.

The sole joke is that this is his biography, as Archer himself would tell it. And it is a very good one, because Archer is seen as self-important and this show escalates that to preposterous levels.

In reality Archer is in jail and, considering the seemingly relaxed regime he is under, he has only managed to produce one book, A Prison Diary.

Greta Scacchi takes on a challenging role as Margaret Thatcher

You cannot read it without helping the man financially but the back cover alone has a hilarious attempt by Archer to make himself look good.

So he is ripe for this sort of treatment.

Drop the Dead Donkey writer Guy Jenkins relishes making Jeffrey Archer an Indiana Jones-style hero - responsible for victory in the Gulf War, single-handedly blowing up the Iranian Embassy and prompting Sir Paul McCartney with every Beatles lyric.

It is a farce of astounding excess and it ought to fail, to simply run out of jokes.

In truth it is a little long, but the surprise is not that every excess of the fictional Archer tops the one before, but that Damian Lewis is so good in such a ludicrous role.

His Jeffrey Archer mocks the real man and certainly mocks his overblown writing style. While we never like his Archer, he is strangely engaging.

Lewis delivers Archer's grand, self-important speeches superbly and manages to keep believable as he strikes heroic poses, or strides across the top of police vans to rescue Margaret Thatcher from danger.

Jeffrey Archer - The Truth is part thriller, part Royal scandal and all farce that is sometimes utterly, utterly daft but funny.

Jeffrey Archer: The Truth is on BBC One on Sunday from 2100 - 2200 and 2215 - 2245 GMT.