THE GOOD THE BARD & THE HILARIOUS!
The Windsors ALL4
Curled up safely in the castle, is the Queen chortling at this affectionate comedy sending up her family? Harry Enfield plays Charles as a hilarious caricature, married to a grotesque (Haydn Gwynne as Camilla), and father to a son who’s thicker than porridge and married to a gypsy (Hugh Skinner and Louise Ford as Wills and Kate). Three series
Toast Of London ALL4
No sitcom has been so stuffed full of actorly in-jokes. Matt Berry is Stephen Toast, the pretentious, talentless thesp who imagines himself to be the next Olivier but will do any voiceover, however degrading, if it pays the rent. Doon Mackichan is his impossibly luvvie agent, who can barely be bothered to stoke his ego. Three series
Benidorm BRITBOX/NETFLIX
Don’t write this show off if you’ve only seen the later, more slapstick series. When it began, Benidorm was savagely funny. Steve Pemberton and Siobhan Finneran were Mick and Janice, bringing their teenage children (and her leather-skinned, gutter-mouthed mother) to a cheap Spanish hotel for an all-inclusive week. As long as they got their sunbeds, they didn’t care that they were surrounded by swingers, alcoholics, warring couples and crooks. Ten series
That’s My Boy ITV HUB
A forgotten gem from the 1980s — and any show that stars Mollie Sugden deserves a second chance. She plays a housekeeper who takes a job with a doctor and his wife...only to suspect that their adopted son is the child she bore and gave away as an unmarried mother in the 1960s. Christopher Blake played her grown-up boy. It’s dated, but none the worse for that. Five series
Cuckoo NETFLIX
This BBC3 sitcom never really caught on, despite its sensational cast. Greg Davies is the boring solicitor whose vivacious daughter comes home from her gap year with a much older, American, hippie husband. Then his dim-witted son (Twilight’s Taylor Lautner) turns up. After that, it’s Andie MacDowell, claiming to be Greg’s long-lost sister. If you tried it and didn’t like it, look again. Five series