US lash Scottish TV host

SCOTS comic Craig Ferguson's days as a top US chat show host could be numbered after critics slated his debut week.

Despite averaging two million viewers a night since taking over as The Late, Late Show host on CBS last Monday - up nine per cent on last year - he's been slammed as "mediocre", "unfunny" and "second- rate".

Glaswegian Ferguson, 42, who became a cult figure on US sitcom The Drew Carey Show, charged into his studio on a Shetland pony dressed as Braveheart.

He begged critics to be kind when he first sat at his desk last Monday.

But the New York Post's Adam Buckman wrote: "After watching a week of shows, I still have no idea who you are."

The Daily Variety said: "The irony is that while Ferguson seems laidback, the cattle-prodded studio audience tries too hard, applauding wildly Glasgow! Woo! at everything that's said."

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