“He looks bewildered and his experienced co-actors look bewildered too.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

grandmas_house.jpg

GRANDMA’S HOUSE, BBC2

“Amstell reminded me of a Generation Game contestant dragooned into a sketch and reading his lines from idiot boards. He looks bewildered and his experienced co-actors look bewildered too.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“All sitcoms making August debuts should be regarded with circumspection if not outright suspicion, and last night… Grandma’s House went and undermined a time-honoured tradition by being rather good.”
Brian Viner, The Independent

“Sharply written, with some nice lines and a bit of edge to it,. And every now and then it will throw a little surprise at you.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“There’s a lot to love and laugh at… less like Cybill than a Chigwell-Jewish version of The Royle Family…. The only bum note is the show’s closeness to reality. In the first place, Amstell is a poor choice to be playing Simon for the simple reason that he can’t act very well.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

INN MATES, BBC3

“The opening episode was as embarrassing to watch as it possibly was to act in, although there could be no faulting the cast for effort, and it wasn’t their fault that the narrative appeared to have been eschewed in favour of a series of disconnected sketches that relied for laughs on spectacles such as that of a pair of fat police community support officers getting stoned.”
Brian Viner, The Independent

GEARS AND TEARS, BBC1

“”Romeo and Juliet without love isn’t, well, isn’t anything really; certainly not worth six episodes. And the stock car racing… is no substitute.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

Topics