Are there a lot of misogynistic men out there being mean about this sitcom starring mostly women or is this actually rubbish? This got a bit of a thumping on Twitter last week so I thought I'd better have a closer look. You certainly can't fault the cast which includes Jessica Hynes and Rebecca Front. Not to mention an almost unrecognisable Vicki Pepperdine undergoing a positively De Niroesque transformation as Gwen attempting to spread their suffrage message when not spreading butter on sandwiches.

I think part of the problem is that the cast makes audiences expect a sophisticated period version of W1A or The Thick of It and this, written by Hynes, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and Morwenna Banks, couldn't be more different. The gags are often smutty and broad. And that's when they are not being childish and silly. Plenty of giggles from the mere mention of the word "rim" from Gwen, while Rebecca Front made some Latin sound filthy. The line "I tried it once and I ended up barefoot on a train to Penrith" was better though – impeccably delivered by Hynes.

It's not the writing that is the issue though, it's the way this has been put together. The laughs are loud and come thick and fast and are genuine and not canned laughter. But to my tin ears they do sound odd. They don't have the same relaxed, natural ring, for instance, as the laughs during Count Arthur Strong.

Of course women should have the vote, but whether the person responsible for the sound should be allowed to vote I'm not so sure. Maybe people just spoke faster back then, but this seems strangely frantic. As if they wanted to get through their 30-minute slot as quickly as possible. I suspect some viewers wanted it to be over quickly too.

Read a review of Count Arthur Strong here.