Love, Nina

Just watched the second episode of Love Nina and enjoyed it just as I did the first. Yes you do have to free yourself from some of the awkward things and then it becomes a wonderful amusing charming piece of work. I think that as it is from a book by Nina Stibbe that it is taken from her real life experiences.

I read the first review and was shocked that anyone could not like this refreshing programme. I come from London and find the depiction of the comfortably well off London family with ghastly children and odd bods of notoriety as lodgers pretty accurate.

I have groaned almost wept at the poor comedy that BBC1 has served up over the past year, wonderful comedy actors but with terrible scripts.

At last there is still hope for BBC1. Can't wait for episode 3 if LOVE NINA!

There was just one reason I made it to the end of this show: Helena Bonham Carter. Apart from Carter: annoying girl walks barefeet through London, takes a job as a nanny for two kids, meets a boy who is smarter than her but they still get along. Sometimes one of the kids has a condition and needs some special attention. Did I forget anything? No, I think that's about it.

Why, Nick Hornby?

I am about 10 minutes into the first episode on BBC iplayer and I hate it already. Nothing rings true about it and comedy has to have a ring of truth for it to work. The children in it are obnoxious and the woman who plays Nina just is not up to it. Only Helena Bonham Carter works in this. Nina would have been out of a job in a heartbeat if she had been the way she was in this debacle. I have been really disappointed by this as I have always enjoyed Nick Hornby's writing in previous outings. It just goes to show how difficult the sitcom form can be. The way children speak in front of their parents is ridiculously inappropriate and it jars horribly on the ears. Likewise the way her employers speak in front of her, their employee.

Maybe it's the lack of good quality drama being made in the UK that allows this to stand out, or maybe it's as charming as i found it. Looks and feels like a British film more than a sitcom but it made me laugh and feel warm. The young girl that plays Nina is terrific and the two kids are great. The whole dynamic of the show was inspired and that is what gives it its eighties authenticity more than the set pieces.

Loved this. Wacky and weird characters. Funny story line. Perfect casting. Based on a true story so even better!!