Kate & Koji

Just stumbled upon this on ITV Hub in skimming the TV schedules recently, the thought suddenly dawned on me where are the new comedies on ITV?

For all intents and purposes ITV seemed to have given up on comedy in return, for perpetual cheap tat like 'Reality TV'.

I simply love Brenda Blethin she is one of my favourite British actresses, absolutely superlative in everything she turns her hands to.

It's nice to see Barbara Flynn in anything I still fancy her rotten, and yes as far as I'm concerned she's certainly got it. I remember her mainly from the Beiderbecke series, with James Bolam. As well as Cracker with Robbie Coltrane, where she is his long suffering spouse.

I don't know Jimmy Akingbola in deed I have never heard of him, having really enjoyed watching him in this comedy he certainly deserves to be well known. His character of restrained pedantry is well observed, delivered and very funny, many so called comics could learn from him.

The script is written by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkins the same blokes who wrote, one of my absolute favourite TV comedies Drop the Dead Donkey.

I really like this comedy show and I hope it gets more than 1 Series, it certainly deserves to run on much longer. I have just seen online that indeed it's getting a 2nd Series which is brilliant news.

We have really enjoyed the first two seasons of K&K although it took awhile to warm up to the "new" Koji. The actor is much better in the last couple of episodes but lacks the dry wit and sarcasm of Jimmy. Granted this is just silly slapstick and you might even say, predictable most of the time however the writers are definitely playing to the strengths of the actors and it is pretty much confined to one small cafe. Not the best comedy on tv but certainly entertaining.

Kate is an older hot headed uncompromising cafe owner who dislikes change, doesn't really understand the modern world and doesn't really want to, and Koji is a dignified African gentleman who is seeking asylum, and also a Doctor. At first they don't get along but as he is desperate for food, drink and a warm place to be, and Kate needs to attract customers, they reluctantly find compromises, and character driven amusement ensues.

There are many other background characters, most follow fairly simple archetypes making it easy to get into, and it's definitely aimed at an older audience as it's basically old fashioned 70s style humour, just set in the modern world.

Oh and the lefty papers hate it with a passion as much as they hate Mrs Brown's Boys and for all the same reasons, so if you like that, check it out.

I found this very funny. The main character (Kate) is similar to Barbara (1990's series stating Gwen Taylor) and if you liked that then you'll like this. Probably also appeal to people who found the excellent Dinner Ladies funny as it is a similar sort of humour.

You would expect Brenda Blethyn to be good but she is more Vera than Alison Little (Chance in a Million - also an excellent comedy). But Jimmy Akingbola who I've never seen before is excellent in his deadpan delivery and Blake Harrison has managed to get away from the terrible Inbetweeners to be good in this show.

One reviewer actually said this was "borderline racist". Good grief - it is exactly the opposite of that.

However I can't see how the plot can develop and so I expect one (or maybe two) series.

A ' Count Arthur Strong' setting redone with some underused Actors/Actresses that deserve to be on TV more often then the terrible ones we constantly see, a good first episode with my fingers crossed it continues to get better.