It's always good to see David Morrissey on TV. He's a strong indicator of the top quality of a programme and that's certainly the case here. Although it is definitely a change of style for him. He's not heroic or intense or just plain serious. In Daddy Issues he plays a hapless divorced father who ends up living with his pregnant daughter, played by Aimee Lou Wood.
It is written by Danielle Ward, who had a dark sensibility when she was a stand-up comedian, but here goes for the mainstream jugular. It's quite a conventional set-up for a sitcom. Every now and again when I'm scrolling through channels I come across the John Thaw/Reece Dinsdale chestnut Home To Roost and from what I can tell it's not a million miles from that. Even the casting is similar with Thaw showing some unexpected sitcom chops in the way Morrissey does here.
The plot if pretty basic. Goofy Sex Education star Wood plays Mancunian hairdresser Gemma, who after a one flight stand (I don't think you get airplane toilets that roomy on Ryanair) she finds herself pregnant just as her flatmate decides to move out. Meanwhile solo dad Malcolm (Morrissey) is living in bedsit squalor, mouldy yoghurt in the fridge, buying dinner from the garage, seedy landlord.
After the mandatory flatmate interview montage – seen previously in everything from Shallow Grave to Men Behaving Badly – the lightbulb finally goes off above Gemma's head. Dad, who doesn't even know what a jacket potato is, should move in. At a stroke he escapes from his hovel, she halves her rent. Result.
And of course there's plenty of humour to be had from the generational and personality clashes. Plus there's a sensitive bit about Gemma becoming her dad's surrogate mother/wife just as she is about to become a mother herself.
it's a show not without it's cliches. As well as the flatmate interview scene, what comedic prison visit would not be complete without a rubber gloved bumhole inspection? But it's all well-played, it's got heart and charm and a brilliant supporting cast, including Susan Lynch as mum, Sharon Rooney as sister and Sarah Hadland as boss. David Fynn plays Malcolm's landlord/friend Derek who is so unpleasantly sleazy he feels like an escape valve for Ward's misanthropic side that has been suppressed elsewhere.
Decent script, decent cast and you get to see David Morrissey's grubby bare feet. What's not to love?
Read an interview with the stars here.
Watch now on BBC Three/iPlayer
Picture: BBC/Fudge Park Productions/James Stack/Photographer: Matt Squire
