The Worst Week of My Life

I'd not seen the series at the time of its transmission and only caught it by accident 10 years later.

Like many I greatly admire Alison Steadman, here though she doesn't an opportunity for the grand grotesques with which she has graced the large and small screens, and on radio (in the form of the very obliging Mrs Naughtie). Here she is well meaning, motherly and tolerant of her sour, sarcastic and humourless husband - played by an actor who has honed this type of role to withering perfection - Geoffrey Whitehead.

Lovely comic actress Sarah Alexander once again plays to her strengths.

The format and some of the laughs are quite familiar - faux pas and foul-ups committed by new husband and soon to be new father played by Ben Miller. One comic situation was unfamiliar - in warmly hugging his mother in law to comfort her, a baby's rattle comes between them. Of all the nightmare misunderstandings, this must rate as one of the worst. So unspeakable that quite believably the Alison Steadman character runs away and locks herself in her bedroom - preventing her from hearing the innocent explanation until some while later. Had this been a big screen version, the Geoffrey Whitehead character would have reacted. This TV production would have benefited from some honing.

I'm a hard person to get to laugh at any show. I don't know if it was just stupid enough, or actually funny. How can anyone be as clumsy and accident prone? It's good for a laugh, if you need it.

Okay, so you could almost describe it as Britain's answer to 'Meet the Parents', but that is doing this fantastic sitcom a huge disservice. Ben Miller and Sarah Alexander do a fantastic job as an uptight, very much in love and very middle class couple, desperate to get through their pre-wedding week, and the casting of Alison Steadman as the hysterical perfectionist seating plan obsessed mother is a masterstroke. The comedy is constantly farcical and slapstick, but without becoming gross-out (i.e.Farrelly brothers). Do not let claims of tired ideas being rehashed put you off this fantastic britcom, because yes, the basis of the sitcom has been visited a few times before, but this is a fresh take, and the result is an invigorating and exciting exercise in programming. Highly recommended!

For me it's one of the best British comedies ever made.

Of course so many things happening is unrealistic but virtually all of them are entirely plausible and both the casting and acting are superb.

So many laugh out loud moments.

Such as shame at least another series wasn't made but I have enjoyed watching the show three times.

Three genuinely wonderful, and funny series of this underrated, and slightly forgotten gem.

Each series focuses on a week in the life of Howard and Mel, from their wedding to Christmas.

There are plenty of belly laughs for you to enjoy, the very first, and second episodes I would argue are the best of the lot in my opinion, and contain moments that are quite literally aide splitting, poor Binky.

Everyone involved is first class, I cannot help but ball laughing every time Dick and Angela appear, they are incredibly funny. Lee Mack quite literally took the character of Dick, renamed him Geoffrey, and placed him into Not Going out.

It's slapstick, it's silly, it's a bit daft, but it is genuinely funny throughout, I just wish we had more of Cassie.

Love it, 8/10.