sitcom
Markie Robson-Scott
The multi-talented Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, Designated Survivor, House) took a two-year acting sabbatical in 2009 to work for the Obama administration. So he is, in theory, ideally placed to co-create, with Matt Murray, a semi-political TV sitcom about a New York City councillor.Councilman Garrett Modi (Modi is actually Penn’s real name) lets partying with Wall Street douchebags go to his head, is busted for driving on the expressway under the influence, then vomits on a police car and attempts to bribe the cops for a billion dollars. Of course, this goes viral and he’s soon pitching up Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Netflix’s Sex Education has returned to our screens and streams. The show made waves last year for its refreshing take on the teen comedy-drama. It took on abortion, consent and female pleasure — subjects strikingly absent from our actual high school educations. The result was a show that was always bingeable, sometimes educative, and oozing with sex-positive delights. Not everyone liked it. But those of us who did — teenagers all over again — could not stop talking about it. These are high expectations for a show going into its sophomore season. But thank God and thank Laurie Nunn: this is a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
What joy to be back with the Shipman and West families, created by writing team James Corden and Ruth Jones. It has been 10 years since sitcom Gavin & Stacey left our screens, and in this Christmas special there was some catching up to do as the two families, who alternate hosting Christmas in Billericay and Barry, were this year in South Wales.Gavin and Stacey (Mathew Horne and Joanna Page), who were expecting their first child when we last saw them, now have three children, and Nessa and Smithy's (Jones and Corden) boy is now 11, although still called Neil the Baby. Everyone was there, Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Dust off the record player: Idris Elba’s Eighties comedy In the Long Run (Sky 1) has returned for a second series. Loosely based on Elba’s childhood, the show brings us into the day-to-day life of a West African couple, their British-born son, and the community in their Leyton council estate.Tonight’s episode picked up right where the last series left us. Amidst rumours of job cuts, Walter Easmon (Elba) has stepped up as union representative for his colleagues at the factory. His brother Valentine (Jimmy Akingbola) has moved into a bachelor pad — the junk-filled flat above their local pub. Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Always leave them wanting more, a wise man once said, and there can’t be a single fan of Mum who doesn’t want its creator, Stefan Golaszewski, to change his mind about making the third series the last. But then, when you achieve perfection perhaps it’s best to sign off at the top; the finale was just scrumptious.Over 18 beautifully paced episodes, Golaszewski crafted a study of familial love, bereavement and the prevailing strength of the human spirit as he told the story of the recently widowed Cathy (Lesley Melville), for whom the word stoic might have been invented.Slowly, very slowly, we Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It is a cliché that never grows old. From Fawlty Towers via The Office all the way through to (so we are told) Fleabag, a great half-hour comedy that bows out after two series cements its place in the pantheon by ensuring posterity wants more. Twelve episodes seems to be the platonic ideal of the perfectly proportioned sitcom. When Stefan Golaszewski’s Mum (BBC Two) ended last time round there was thus a case for stopping there. It finished on a moment of such exquisitely subtle optimism. Parting from Cathy (Lesley Manville) and her daft coterie would have been a sweet sorrow that made Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Pre-publicity for Back to Life has been all about its stablemate. This new six-part comedy comes from the same producers who brought you Fleabag, and the hope is that the Midas touch is catching. It seems unlikely, on the face of it, to follow the same path from the experimental comedy factory that is BBC Three all the way to global domination. That would not be for a lack of originality or ambition, however.Back to Life tells of an emotionally damaged single woman in her thirties on a quest for redemption. So far, so Fleabag. In fact her back story has as much in common with other dramas Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The problem with Fleabag (BBC Three/BBC One) is that it makes almost all television look pedestrian. It’s like the difference between Fleabag’s scummily inadequate boyfriends and the unattainable perfection embodied by the cool sweary priest. Earth vs heaven. Water/wine. And now it is gone.Having delivered a raging aria about the cruelty of love, the sinning father fled back to the triumphant embrace of the Almighty, pursued by a cunning fox. Having declared her own simple truth about love Fleabag, clutching a re-stolen effigy of her mother’s fecund body, set off in the other direction, her Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Piers Morgan hated This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC One) and predicted it would be pulled before the end of the series. This may be taken as a kitemark of quality. And yet the prime target for Steve Coogan’s satire was no voice in the wilderness. A lot of viewers professed themselves underwhelmed by the return of Partridge to mainstream broadcasting and voted with their remotes: the show managed to shed a third of his audience between the first and second episode.One of the disappointments for Partridge fans is that for five episodes he has been on if not best, then better behaviour, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The joke in Dead Pixels, a new sitcom on E4, is that there is a better life to be pursued in the fantasy world of videogames. In this alt. environment, outcomes can be controlled by consoles and keyboards, squeamishness about violence can be parked and you are free to be your best or worst self. Probably the show’s target audience is gamers under 30, but I’m very far from either and I found it a hoot.The other joke is that real life has a habit of butting in. Thus we first met squat blonde Meg (Alexa Davies) on the badminton court where she was plotting to end a long period of celibacy. Then Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The limitless goodwill generated by The Office earned Ricky Gervais the right to do and say as he pleased. Thus, hosting the Golden Globes, he was toweringly rude to Hollywood royalty. In Extras he gleefully portrayed celebrities as vain and ghastly. In The Invention of Lying he explored the logical consequence of a world in which people say what they really think. Add to that the brisk frankness of his stand-up shows, in which he insulted the religious and derided the overweight. Speaking the truth was his self-styled superpower.His misanthropy arrives at a logical terminus in After Life ( Read more ...
Owen Richards
When Derry Girls premiered on Channel 4 in early 2018, there was little fanfare. But it’s been a whirlwind year for the four girls from Derry (and the wee English lad), capturing British hearts before conquering the US through Netflix. Their return in 2019 heralds a much bigger reaction, with faces plastered on front pages and buildings (including a traditional Derry mural). Can these comic upstarts meet the considerably raised expectations?Well, leave it to the ethereally oblivious Orla to quell any early reservations. Interrupting Erin in the tub as she wistfully imagines Read more ...