True, it also produced the truly awful Only
Fools spin-off The Green Green Grass Of Home and, more recently, the fuck awful
(or ‘f-awful’ as the kids say these days) Citizen Khan, but that doesn’t mean
it’s quite dead yet.
A case in point in Me And Mrs Jones, which
kicks off a six-episode run on Friday 12 October. It’s in what’s known as the
Outnumbered slot at From Beer To Paternity Towers and this romantic comedy is a similarly classy
affair to the hit family drama.
The premise is Sarah Alexander (the blonde
woman from Coupling) is a divorced mother of two small girls and one grown-up
son who has to balance the needs of her family with the desire to also have a
life of her own. Oh... and she falls for the best friend of her twentysomething son, too. Throw in a lovable clot of an ex-husband (played by Neil
Morrissey – the one who was not Martin Clunes in Men Behaving Badly) and a single
parent with the hots for her, and… you get the picture.
But
don't expect crude farce and convoluted set-ups that end in OTT set
pieces. It's a much smarter animal than My Hero or My Family. The gags
come quietly under the radar rather than announcing themselves five
minutes before they enter the room only to finally deliver a weak punchline.
Alexander is very engaging and sympathetic as
single mum Gemma and Morrissey is nicely under-stated as her former husband,
while there’s also a show-stealing performance from Nathaniel Parker as possible single
parent love interest Tom. But it’s the script that is the real star.
Written by Oriane Messina and Fay Rusling,
it’s just clever without bragging about it and it manages the balancing act
between great lines and genuine comedy without reaching for the gags and losing
any form of character integrity. It's a genuinely engaging and smart piece of writing.
It's very good and it deserves to be a hit. Enjoy…
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