The Stage

TV review - Vexed, Grandma’s House, Roger and Val Have Just Got In, Pete vs Life

Published Friday 20 August 2010 at 13:49 by Harry Venning

“I’m trying to build a rapport here!” barks Jack (Toby Stephens) at Kate (Lucy Punch) in comedy-drama Vexed. Well let me tell you now, Jack, it’s never going to happen.

Stephens and Punch play mismatched police detectives and for the whole of the first episode there wasn’t any discernible chemistry, sexual or comic, between them. They drive around a lot, swapping snappy dialogue and engaging in frisson-packed narky exchanges, but for all the good it does their on-screen relationship they may as well have shouted it out of the car window.

It is never helpful to apportion blame, but it’s Toby Stephens’ fault. He just hasn’t the lightness of touch to do this sort of comedy. His character, clearly intended as a cynical, manipulative but loveable charmer, comes over as an unpleasant oaf, pure and simple.

Lucy Punch, however, is as good as Stephens is bad. She makes Kate likeable, vulnerable, funny and very sexy.

But even the sharpest flint can’t spark off wet wood.

There has been a glut of new sitcoms released in recent weeks, and a little catch up is in order.

Simon Amstell, type-cast as himself, is the star and co-writer, with Dan Swimer, of Grandma’s House. It can best be described as The Royle Family relocated to North London, converted to Judaism and featuring a former host of Never Mind The Buzzcocks amongst its cast of characters. Basically the show comprises of thirty minutes of nagging, whining and kvetching, lapsing into the vernacular between three generations of very extended family.

Mum’s odious suitor Clive, a cardboard box salesman obsessed with cooking-times for meat, is thrown in for good measure. The action, such as it is, is mostly located in the living or dining room, although at one point there was a short excursion upstairs to a bedroom.

It may not sound thrilling, but Grandma’s Room is worth watching for the terrific performances, the gag-packed dialogue that ricochets around the walls, and for a terrific, understated turn from Amstell, providing a calm, snide, cynical centre to the emotional storm.

Roger and Val have just got in is set in real time, covering the half hour after a comfortably off, middle aged couple have returned home from work. Which has to be the least enticing sitcom premise ever, so maximum respect to whoever pitched that at the BBC Comedy Department.

But dismiss the show at your peril, as it stars Alfred Molina and Dawn French in the title roles, performing exquisitely observed and intricately constructed scripts by Emma and Beth Kilcoyne.

Fish fingers in the wrong fridge, a lost receipt for a vacuum cleaner and badly hanging curtains have so far provided Roger and Val with cause for conflict, reconciliation and yet more conflict.

It’s engaging, rather than enthralling, provoking smiles of recognition rather than howls of amusement.

Pete versus life, a study in oafishness and emotional inadequacy among young men, flagrantly trespasses upon Peep Show’s territory but provides its own twist. Instead of an internal monologue, the titular hero, a down at heel sports writer, is provided with a pair of studio pundits to provide commentary, backed up with appropriate statistics, upon the embarrassing events in Pete’s life as they unfold.

It is an original and clever gimmick, all the more effective for being used sparingly.

Pete is winningly played by the terrifyingly versatile Rafe Spall.

PROGRAMME DETAILS

• Vexed, BBC2, Sunday, August 14, 9pm

• Grandma’s House, Monday, August 16, 10pm

• Roger And Val Have Just Got In, Friday, August 20, BBC2, 10pm

• Pete Versus Life, Channel 4, Friday, August 20, 10pm