I was reading recenty that there was a TV sitcom crisis, that broadcasters weren't making sitcoms any more. Well you could've fooled me. Channel 4 has Big Boys returning later this week and tonight not one but two sitcoms come to BBC One. Later there is the second series of Am I Being Unreasonable? but first there is Amandaland. And it's absolutely fabulous.
As the title suggests, it's a spin-off of Motherland. Lucy Punch plays social climber Amanda who is down on her luck, divorced and living in Soha as she, and only she, has dubbed the grotty part of Harlesden she has been forced to move to. What's even worse, her kids have to go to the local state school. Still, she tries to put a brave face on and claims they will have a better chance of getting into Oxbridge this way.
The opening episode sees Amanda trying to find "her people" and make the right connections. This means hooking up with a local cool gay couple Della and Fi, played by Derry Girls’ Siobhan McSweeney and Line of Duty’s Rochenda Sandall. But when she 'just happens' to pass by their house on her way to meet fellow Motherland star Anne (Philippa Dunne) things don't turn out quite as planned. The master/servant dynamic between Amanda and Anne is still there of course, typified by Amanda offering Anne a lift, dropping her miles from her destination and then asking her to dispose of an old water bottle as she gets out of the car.
Some might say that Amandaland will never be as good as Motherland because it lacks two essential comedy ingredients – Anna Maxwell Martin and Diane Morgan. But the script, by familiar names Sharon Horgan, Holly Walsh, Helen Serafinowicz and Barunka O'Shaughnessy, is very funny in a broad way. There's a glorious bit of slapstick fallabout humour at a school football match and Amanda is always having – very topical – issues charging her electric car, at one point crawling on all fours into her new friends' lounge to try and plug in her charger (let's skip the thought that there might have been a socket in the hall).
Punch is very funny in a snobby, horsey way, and Joanna Lumley is also good, playing her mother, who is essentially a more senior, boozier version of Amanda. Now that the children are older there's less hanging around school gates and now that Amanda is single there might be potential romance on the horizon – I'm guessing with her very amiable school football coach neighbour Mal (Samuel Anderson), who complains about his car being blocked in in the most polite way I've ever seen.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that Amandaland breaks any new ground, but it is full of brilliantly observed, gloriously funny social observations that really hit home. And most importantly it will make you laugh.
Read Am I Being Unreasonable? review here.
Amandaland, Wednesdays from February 5, 9pm, BBC One and series all available on iPlayer.
Picture: BBC/Merman/Natalie Seery
