This is just a quick heads up to remind people to watch the third series of Uncle, which looks like it is going to build to a nice – or maybe not so nice? – romantic finale in a few weeks.
In the second episode Andy (Nick Helm) is trying to make a living writing dumb pop songs for a boy band, but being a long way out of the boy band demographic he doesn't really know the kind of the things boy bands should be singing about. Luckily he has a tame teenager on tap – Errol (Elliot Speller-Gillott) to help him out. Though actually even Errol has to do a straw poll of female teenagers to get some answers, but at least he can do it without looking creepy.
So there is a proper plot here, with proper characters all neatly tied together. And subplot too. Back home Andy’s sister Sam (Daisy Haggard) is trying to conceive with her new boyfriend Bruce (Daniel Lawrence Taylor), which is the cue for some smutty gags from writers Oliver Refson and Lilah Vanderburgh.
It's particularly interesting to see the change in dynamic between the two leads here. In the first series of Uncle Andy was basically a babysitter. Now that the hormones have kicked in for Errol they are both trying to chat up the same woman. And both are having an equal lack of success, so at least they have that in common.
I can't quite see the logic of this being on BBC3, but then maybe neither can the BBC, which is why it is also going out on BBC1 late on Friday nights. Lovely stuff, though, as Nick Helm is at constant pains to point out, he is not Andy. If you ever see him doing a gig it will be nothing like his character here. And there definitely won't be any boyband songs in his set.
Uncle is available online here and on BBC1 on Friday nights.
Review of Episode 1 here.
