I use to watch his shows as a young teenager and enjoyed them... but they seem a bit limited now... hard to imagine now why people accepted the same stuff pretty much year after year.
But he was respected and good at what he done.
Must admit tho... I din't realise he was still with us
The thing is he both took off well know personalities well, but had new patter to create entertaining humour each sketch, which is why he could use the same characters. Yeah, ok, there were the repeated running joke/phrases such as, "As I said at the Brighton conference..", but many comedy series have elements of that.