Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Johnny Vegas, Emilia Fox, Adam James, Niky Wardley, Oscar Kennedy, Harvey Chaisty, Paul Barber, Elaine Paige, Pearce Quigley, Olive Gray, Susan Calman.
Johnny Vegas certainly deserves his chance to headline a major B.B.C. comedy, after all, he has provided fans of the series Still Open All Hours with plenty of laughter, and his relationship with David Jason, Kulvinder Ghir and above all Sally Lindsay, is to be admired, the transition made from stand up to small screen is seamless, even perhaps a greater virtue, one in which finally the actor can feel Home From Home.
A comedy series set on a static holiday home site might not catch the attention of those who believe the only good time to be had when you are away from work is to be out of the country, exploring the world, leaving your footprints in other people’s sand. Whilst that is a laudable thought, there is something to be said for sitting on a porch beside something beautiful in your own country, a place which is slightly alien and unknown, yet so reassuringly familiar, a place where you can drive to within a couple of hours and know that a little piece of home awaits, a favourite painting hanging on the wall, the food, whilst not adventurous, is a reminder of the place you come to when the nourishment you need is more than physical.
You can run away to the country, to the seaside, the dales and the mountains, but every adult who fantasises about such things understands that eventually you have to go home.
To find comedy in the everyday is one of the universal truths of life, not to be mean, not out of spite but in the generous, in the way we find companionship and friendship, is by being able to laugh at the world at the situations we dig ourselves into when trying our hardest to match up to other people’s expectations or lifestyles. It is a situation to which the ordinary thrives and whilst programmes like Duty Free whetted our appetite for foreign travel and the luxury of the continent, it somehow leaves an unwelcome taste in our mouth when looking back upon those times. To have an adventure is one thing, but when we use other country’s languages and customs to raise a laugh, that is when the line should be drawn.
An enjoyable first series of this domestic comedy, the humour framed well and with Johnny Vegas being joined by Adam James, Emilia Fox and Niky Wardley; it is sure to be commissioned for another outing.
Ian D. Hall