MY quest to find a sitcom which is a) British, b) worth watching and c) not relegated to BBC 3 tonight involves an encounter with Joanna Lumley as a 60-year-old who has recently become a widow.
So far, so bad. But maybe that's what happens with the best sitcoms: they can't be summed up in a simple one-liner. There's much more to them. A case in point: The Brittas Empire.
It proves my point by being an utterly crap sitcom which could be summed up in one phrase: Lunatics running a leisure centre. When were leisure centres ever funny?
On the other hand, there was The Office. Nutter running an office doesn't begin to cover it.
So we'll give Joanna the benefit of the doubt for tonight with Sensitive Skin .
It's into a second series too and I think Joanna is old enough and wise enough to know when to jump a sinking ship. Just had a thought on the whole 'one sentence is never enough to describe a sitcom' argument - Absolutley Fabulous.
Anyway, going back to tonight. Joanna plays Davina, the older woman about town. Six months on from losing Al, her husband, she is starting to get to grips with life again. Unlike her estate agent, who simply can't get to grips with the sort of house Davina wants to buy.
Davina now works in an art gallery, where a naked painting 'Widow in the Wilderness' is of, er Davina. No wonder women who still have husbands aren't mad keen on them spendign time with Davina.
But the beauty of this programme isn't a naked Joanna, it's that the comedy is allowed to unfold at its own pace - it isn't rushed into a 'laugh ever 10 seconds' type situation - therefore drawing another parallel with The Office.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »