Home Time

Best comedy I've seen in years. Up there with the likes of The Office, The In-betweeners, Gavin & Stacey, Lead Balloon, and Jam & Jerusalem.

The identification-value of this series is enormous for anyone who was still growing up in the nineties. I see it becoming a cult show because of the cultural references that made me shiver in horrific recognition. How naive we were lol..

The acting is award-worthy from the whole cast, each is perfectly in character all the time, but especially Philip Jackson who excels as Gaynor's father, writing on his face all the words his fatherly reservation won't let him speak, and getting the best line of the series.

Apparently now if you can't handle slow and subtle then this is not the show for you.. A lot of people seem to be criticising the pace and while I found this to be one of the more genius aspects it seems to have brought a lot of comedy-viewers out in a rash of impatience causing reviews of hatred and anger, lolz. One wonders how they made it to the end of the series? Perhaps they thought there would be some porn.. Personally I think slow and subtle beats hard and fast every time ;)

IMO (and I leave myself willingly open to ridicule) there's something going on here that a lot of people can't handle watching - themselves, their poor choices and mistakes, fragility and incapability, falling back and failing. Apparently no-one looking for insightful comedy can handle anymore the way it reflects ourselves. IMO these are the very reasons comedy is comedy. You've gotta laugh or you'd cry. Have times gotten so tough and mercenary we can't even look ourselves in the mirror in case the hard-nosed camouflage fractures? C'mon people it's time to ponder what the hell we're doing with our lives and then write more comedy gold like this cos people desperately need it.

Somewhere in between the homely comfort of 'Gavin and Stacey' and the doom-laded chaos of 'Pulling' comes 'Hometime', a new BBC comedy, about Gaynor, a woman who returns home after 10 years away to discover nothing has changed. Cue masses of Britpop on the soundtrack, and some good lines, although set against a background not so much deadpan as catatonic: the set up is convincing but the interaction between Gaynor and her long lost friends seems strangely devoid of energy. It's a shame, because there's a great idea in here somewhere, but a comedy about a depressed person is maybe always going to struggle; if you think about it, most comedies tell the story of outrageous optimists, and for good reason. The series ending is clearly an attempt to set up a second run; but I was underwhelmed by the first.