The Unfavourable Death of Mrs Bookham

Derren Litten has gone from Benidorm to Scarborough. I guess that cuts down on the location budget.

I have a simple rule for comedies. Did it make me laugh?

The first episode is about the strained relationship between Karen (Catherine Tyldesley) a hairdresser and amusement arcade manager Mike (Jason Manford.) He has been seen snogging the town vamp Hayley Cox and her husband has just been released early from prison. Karen's grouchy mother Marion (Stephanie Cole) made some acerbic observations that would not be too out of place from Roy Clarke's pen in Last of the Summer Wine.

A lot of the characters get together in the local pub where the landlord is played by Derren Litten, the pub had a karaoke night. It gave Manford a chance to sing some 80s songs.

Litten who is from Hull managed to get some Housemartins or The Beautiful South tunes in. He also directed the opener and he had a wonderfully choreographed end shot which is unusual in a sitcom.

Unfortunately there was nothing here that made me laugh. It falls between two stools such as those observational comedies like the The Royal Family which has no laughter track and more traditional comedies like Open all Hours which needs jokes and set ups. Stephanie Cole and Maggie Ollerenshaw who appear in the latter also feature here.

Darren Litten has crossed over from The Solana in Benidorm, to the seaside tone of Scarborough.

This isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, because humour has changed over the years, one of favourite comedies of all time is Early Doors, good old fashioned Northern humour, with some big characters. Whilst this isn't up to that standard, I still enjoyed it.

Not a rip roaring start, but there is definitely some potential here. Some new faces to TV sitcom, and some seasoned performers in Maggie Ollerenshaw and Stephanie Cole. In performance terms, I thought Catherine Tyldesley was really good as Karen.

Some nice moments of humour, more to come I'm sure. 6/10