WHAT’S OCCURRING? LOTS OF LAUGHS!
TO CHEER you up while you’re stuck indoors, we’re giving you free guides to the best TV available through streaming and catch-up services. All this week, the Mail’s TV critic CHRISTOPHER STEVENS and TV editor MIKE MULVIHILL will be tapping into the vast archives of dazzling drama, must-see movies, fascinating factual shows and fabulous family entertainment on hand at the touch of a button. But we start today with the funniest shows available...
LAUGH-OUT-LOUD SITCOM CLASSICS Gavin & Stacey BBC iPLAYER
We all loved these long-distance lovebirds in their heyday at the end of the Noughties, but the sheer depth of affection for this show surprised everyone last Christmas. Writers and stars James Corden and Ruth Jones revived their sitcom, based in the South Wales seaside town of Barry and Billericay, Essex, for a one-off special and broke viewing figures for the decade. An incredible 17 million people tuned in or watched on catch-up. Not bad for a comedy that began life without fanfare on BBC Three. Don’t miss the show-stealing turn by Rob Brydon as unmarried Uncle Bryn. Three series and a special
Fawlty Towers BBC iPLAYER/NETFLIX
There were only 12 episodes ever made of Fawlty Towers, but every one was comic perfection. Many of John Cleese’s perfectly honed phrases as hotelier Basil have entered the language . . . like ‘herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the Serengeti!’ Add to that two sublime performances, by Andrew Sachs as waiter Manuel and Prunella Scales as the dragoness Sybil, and you have sheer joy. Two series
Outnumbered iPLAYER/NETFLIX
Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner played embattled parents with a chaotic home life, but the real stars were the children — Jake, Ben and Karen (Tyger Drew-Honey, Daniel Roche and Ramona Marquez). The cast were given free rein to ad lib, and the children were encouraged to say whatever came into their heads. The results are hilarious and often moving. But the show wasn’t afraid to depict real family problems either — Grandad was suffering from dementia, and Gran was an online gambling addict. Five series
W1A iPLAYER
Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes reprised their roles from Twenty Twelve (two series available on BritBox) but here, instead of organising the Olympics, they’re floundering in the BBC’s bloated management structure. It’s overflowing with perfectly observed jargon and executive nonsense. Three series
Catastrophe ALL4/AMAZON PRIME
A one-night stand for Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan turns into disaster — pregnancy, marriage, job switches, parenting . . . and alcoholism. They lose their friends, their careers and their self-respect. What happens to the dog is the least of their problems. But through it all they never fall out of love, not least because they always fancy the pants off each other. Carrie Fisher co-starred as Rob’s appalling mother. Four series
Father Ted ALL4
Dermot Morgan was doing stand-up comedy as a priest who thought he was too cool to be a clergyman for years before this blissful sitcom. Writers Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan imagined him being banished to an island off the Irish west coast over a financial scandal (‘The money was just resting in my account!’ Ted would protest). They paired him with a gormless trainee priest — Ardal O’Hanlon as Father Dougal — and a cantankerous senile drunk (Father Jack, played by Frank Kelly) who sat in his armchair drinking toilet cleaner and swearing. Without their devoted housekeeper Mrs Doyle, they might all have died of thirst (‘More tea, Father? Ah, go on . . . go on, go on, go on, go on’). Morgan’s death in 1998 cut short this most perfect of sitcoms. Three series and a special
The IT Crowd ALL4/NETFLIX
Another cult classic. The cast have gone on to greater things, especially Chris O’Dowd, now a Hollywood star. Katherine Parkinson is an acclaimed