Anna Maxwell Martin

Essentially Mumsnet: the sitcom, an utterly hysterical and bracingly honest look at the messy business of motherhood. Diane ("Cunk") Morgan, Lucy Punch and Anna Maxwell Martin are by turns chaotic, uber-competitive and Not Coping Very Well ("I really want the children to be brought up like I was - by my mother") in this delicious one-off from the combined writing talents of Graham and Helen Linehan, Sharon Horgan and Holly Walsh. Fingers crossed for a series.

Mumsy stuff gives me the boak. Reading about this new comedy I was immediately left cold and queasy: a sitcom about the stresses of "middle-class motherhood"? No thanks. And then I watched it and loved it, because the glorious, furious, stressed-out mother in this is clearly also nauseated by the horrors of motherhood.

Anna Maxwell Martin plays Julia, a frantically busy working mother who goes through hell trying to take the brats to school, only to find it's closed for half-term. Her mum is refusing to babysit any longer and Amanda, the soulless blonde Queen of the Alpha Mummies at the trendy cafe admires Julia for being able to hold down a job and simply "switch off" her family. Oh, I would just "hate myself too much", she simpers with silky poison. I was surprised at how much I loved this, given the recent glut of miserable sitcom pilots, but this one is written by Graham Linehan and Sharon Horgan. Enough said.

Motherland has realities of school run down to a tee

Modern parents will recognise themselves - and cringe - in this pilot comedy from Catastrophe's Sharon Horgan and Father Ted's Graham Linehan, says Ben Dowell.

TV preview: Motherland, BBC2

How kind of the BBC to save the sitcom pilot with the most potential until last.