Sonatine97

This short-lived sitcom/taster reminds me of Channel 4's "PhoneShop" from 2009, In fact when you look at the summary for that show on here you'll see."The antics of the dysfunctional staff of Sutton branch of a mobile phone retailer." Well you can swap out Sutton for Peterborough and mobile phone for sports outfitters and you have the same scenario but with far less interesting characters.

The only problem is that Phoneshop developed over 3 seasons, where this seems to have been canned before it had chance to improve the scripts and flesh out the rather vanilla characters.

Laughs are few and far between, and the show is standing around desperately looking for a spark of imagination and fresh humour.

Had it been given a few more episodes things could have really surprised and entertained us. As it is Sneakerhead is stuck in the traps constantly tripping over itself.

There's a new broom at the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. Gone is former Minister, Nicola Murray, her party and her aggressive bullying spin-doctor, Martin Tucker. To be replaced by the world-weary, middle-aged, cynic, Peter Mannion and his coalition Junior Minister, a young and enthusiastic, Fergus Williams.

Despite being in government both Mannion and Williams are somewhat side-tracked by the news of a homeless former nurse with mental health issues is living in a tent after being evicted from his NHS key-worker home - a home that was sold off by Mannion's government, along with hundreds of others in order to pay off PFI debts.

Stuart Pearson is back as their spin-doctor trying to push a new policy to the media called "App-ortnuity for the Network Nation", which is basically an IT initiative to attract young people to write computer apps with government support.

Fergus is very keen to be at the forefront of the media campaign primarily because he is fairly familiar with how it works. Whereas Mannion is out of his depth and has little idea what it is he is being asked to announce. Inevitably, Pearson asks Mannion to lead the campaign rather than Williams.

A new season, a new government and new faces at DoSAC. In this episode we don't get to see Tucker, or former DoSAC minister Nicola Murray for that matter. Instead we welcome Fergus, Emma Messenger, Adam Kenyon and Pearson - all of whom have appeared in previous episodes of the show.

To be honest it made a nice change not having Tucker bully, abuse and coerce his staff. His opposite number, Pearson, rarely swears but talks in business-speak and can be very passive/aggressive if he doesn't get his way.

Mannion, is a delight as the cynical old politician who detests nearly everyone and every new initiative in his department, but in particular he out-of-touch Pearson and and the youthful Williams.

There are not many laugh-out loud moments as the humour is rather dry, subtle and ironic. But despite this the episode is quite fun, not least for seeing some new faces who are just as bitter and twisted as Tucker and his former Departmental colleagues.

Nicola Murray, the much maligned Minister of Social Affairs and Citizenship, along with her shadow Minister, Peter Mannion, are invited to appear on a BBC Radio 5 talk show hosted by Richard Bacon. Murray wants to push her "Fourth Sector Path Finder" initiative that will inspire people out of poverty, but Bacon criticises the many weak points behind it.

Mannion is also blind-sided by Bacon who wants to focus on big bonuses for fat-cat City bankers. The problem is that many of Mannion's friends work in banking and he is going to find it difficult to criticise them publicly.

The respective spin doctors - Martin Tucker for Murray and Stuart Pearson, Mannion - listen in at their offices and soon realise that their Ministers are going way off-message to the point where both of them have to go to the studio and get them back on focus.

On a slightly more domestic front both Emma and Ollie (both of whom work for their respective Ministers) are eating at home together while listening to the radio broadcast. Emma is seriously focused on what is being said by Mannion, while Ollie is trying for a more romantic evening in order to strengthen their relationship and failing miserably.

An intriguing if somewhat claustrophobic episode. It was good to see both Mannion and Murray being interrogated by an independent source (Bacon) rather than being back at the office and protected by their staff and the likes of Pearson and Tucker.

This match-up is even more intriguing since Murray wants to help people out of poverty but hasn't got a clue how to do it; and Mannion who wants to defend his extremely rich friends with City bonuses - one extreme to the other.

But because something like 80% of the episode takes place in the confining, oppressive BBC studio it does make for a rather intense but revealing 30 minutes.

It was also good to see both Tucker and Pearson go head to head over policy, even resorting to name calling and blackmailing. Which only underlines how untrustworthy and duplicitous they both are when pressed.

Richard Bacon, who plays himself, is also quite excellent as the passive/aggressive interviewer and gives equal measure of cynicism to both ministers.

A good episode, but the claustrophobic feel throughout is a bit much at times.