THERE is a long-held theory that children’s television favourite The Magic Roundabout only really makes sense if you are under the influence of ‘mind altering substances’.

Now the Beeb appears to have come up with another offering for which magic mushrooms would be the ideal accompaniment — Saturday teatime’s Don’t Scare the Hare.

It’s basically a simple general knowledge quiz with a cash prize. So far, so good. But now introduce a four-foot tall robot rabbit hunting for giant carrots and it suddenly starts to get surreal.

Add into the mix the fashion disaster that is Jason Bradbury as presenter and it really does start to get very strange indeed.

The man with the funny glasses, who this week chose to wear his braces hanging down the back of his pants, talks to the scary-looking bunny as though it were real while three excited contestants bicker among themselves about how to answer the questions.

If you’re going to have a gimmick in your game show at least make it entertaining. Surely this is a programme which would have been ideal for CBeebies. Make the questions simple, involve bunches of kids and hey, presto it works.

But primetime Saturday night viewing it ain’t.