Here We Go

BBC1, 8.30pm

My Family, Outnumbered, 2point4 Children: the British family sitcom may not be much celebrated but it is a dependable draw for primetime audiences.

Now scriptwriter Tom Basden and a uniformly strong cast – including Alison Steadman (right, centre), Katherine Parkinson (far right) and Jim Howick (right of Steadman) – deliver a dependable new series (following a pilot episode entitled Pandemonium in December 2020).

It centres on the exploits of an ordinary family, the Jessops, mostly as filmed through the camera of their teenage son Sam. In the opening episode of the sixpart series, Paul (Howick) has grand plans for wife Rachel (Parkinson) to celebrate her 45th birthday, but matters go awry.

The hand-held video format gives a modern twist to wryly amusing lines and finely crafted farcical scenes.