Seven-day TV guide
(Channel 4, tonight, 10pm)
CHANNEL 4’s online comedy strand Blaps was launched to showcase new talents, and so far it’s doing a pretty good job.
Rosin Conaty’s sitcom GameFace, the Bafta-awardwinning Chewing Gum and the hidden-camera prank show Bad Robots all started life as Blaps, and there are another four full series on their way this year – including Jamie Demetriou’s Stath, Marc Wootton’s High and Dry and tonight’s new sitcom Lee and Dean.
If you’re a dedicated Blaps watcher, you may be thinking that the title doesn’t sound familiar, but there’s a reason for that. Lee and Dean is the work of writing duo Miles Chapman and Mark O’Sullivan, who created the pilot Flavours, which followed married couple Delphine and Vic Heslop, and God-fearing Grant Gottlieb and his son Brent, as they tried to work out exactly what they wanted from life.
Although that didn’t become a full series, Channel 4 were impressed enough to give the duo the chance to create and star in their own new sitcom.
The duo have chosen to bring us this five-part series, which follows the exploits of Stevenage builders Lee (Chapman) and Dean (O’Sullivan).
It seems the pair are excited about bringing the comedy to our screens – and the learning opportunities it presents.
They say: “We’re cock-a-hoop that we’ve been given the opportunity to bring Lee and Dean to life for the channel that has produced so many of our favourite comedies. And if there’s any chance we can get a City & Guilds in bricklaying out of it, it’s a double win for us.”
It’s being billed as a story of cheap builds, cheap lager, bark rubbing, break ups, and bad poetry.
There’s also an impressive supporting cast including Ramon Tikaram, Ricky Grover and Tom Bennett, but at the heart of it is the life-long friendship between the two title characters.
However, in the first episode of the new series, it looks like the bond is already under threat as Lee meets Nikki (Camille Ucan) and for the first time seems to be completely smitten.
Dean’s nose is put out of joint when she moves into their flat, and even takes over organising Lee’s birthday celebrations.
However, Nikki might not be quite so keen to throw him a party if she knew that she wasn’t the only woman in Lee’s life.
He’s also been offering a unique form of after-care to his posh client Mrs. Bryce-D’Souza (Anna Morris), who apparently sees herself as more than just a perk of the job.
So, when she turns up at the party unannounced, will Dean step in to the save the day or let her ruin Lee’s budding relationship?
Mrs. Bryce-D’Souza may not be the only threat to the Lee’s romance – or his bromance – as Dean’s dad (Benidorm’s Perry Benson) gets the wrong end of the stick after overhearing a drunken conversation and unwittingly pressures Lee and Nikki into making a very public commitment to each other.