I'd only recently watched post-apocalyptic drama The Last Of Us when I watched Everyone Else Burns and my first thought was, here we go again, you wait ages for something about the destruction of humanity and then two come along at the same time. Fortunately as we watch the hyper-religious David (Simon Bird) and his family doing a runner and heading for the hills it turns out to be a dry run and the end is not quite nigh after all. Same time tomorrow perhaps.

The star of Inbetweeners and Friday Night Dinner has picked a good vehicle here, just a bad haircut. His pudding bowl Blackadder I coiffure is literally cut with a yellow bowl over his head. The haircut is a source of easy laughs but there are some more clever ones scattered over this fast-moving scene-setting first episode. David's son Aaron (Harry Connor) unveils a particular comic image which to say more here would spoil the surprise.

Elsewhere David is hoping for a promotion in his local church in the – fictional – Order of the Divine Rod in Manchester, but he might just have to wait a bit longer. He is more successful at the sorting office where he holds down a day job and can pop parcels in the correct slot at lightning speed. Maybe he has help from God.

Meanwhile his wife Fiona (Kate O’Flynn) is bemoaning th fact that they no longer have a TV and, despite their differences, nips round to the neighbour Melissa, played by Morgana Robinson, to watch theirs. Lolly Adefope crops up as a schoolteacher getting over a break-up who thinks David's daughter Rachel (Amy James-Kelly) has some real academic talent ("straight As, where did we go wrong?" asks David) that should no be wasted. Rachel is more interested in a possible romantic attachment with a local lad with a past...

Everyone Else Burns, written by relative newcomers Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor, is a strikingly fresh sitcom while at the same time touching on some instantly recognisable tropes – the family dynamic, dad worried about his status, rivalry, meddling neighbours. It takes a few swipes at religion but actually in a fairly benign way. David, in the first episode at least, is sympathetic and not portrayed as an utter loon. Which given that hair is some achievement. Throw in familiar comedy faces Al Roberts, Liam Williams and Kadiff Kirwan and Everyone Else Burns is clearly hot stuff.

Everyone Else Burns, C4, Mondays from January 23, 9pm, C4Picture: C4