Anna Maxwell Martin

Code 404 review

This is an original comedy from Sky and possibly their best one, thanks to the cast. The joy is that in another universe this could have been a po-faced drama, and the three leads are sending themselves up.

Code 404 review

Sky's had a pretty good run with its comedy commissions lately, thanks to the likes of Breeders and Intelligence, and Code 404 - named after the 'page not found' error in internet protocols - is a solid and stupid addition to that decent slate.

It seems the apocalypse has been averted. But how? The final episode of this Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett collaboration answers that question in discursive and inventive style. After a standoff between angels and demons there are neat reappearances from Jon Hamm and Anna Maxwell Martin.

Review - The Personal History of David Copperfield

It is a rollicking ride. A bit too rollicking, if I'm honest, careening through the 350,000 word novel at breakneck speed.

The second series of the comedy about struggling middle-class mums ends with another Julia special: a school sports day where she faces off with old adversary Mrs Lamb. While the material is more knowing and less quietly chaotic, Anna Maxwell Martin and Diane Morgan excel themselves.

Motherland, final episode, review

A hilariously close-to-the-bone depiction of parenthood.

I made the mistake a few weeks ago of powering through every single outing of Nick Hornby's lovely, subtle State of the Union in a single night. I won't be erring in similar fashion with the latest series of Motherland, even though it's tempting, it all having been dumped on iPlayer in one greedy gloop.

No, I'll savour it: and the opener (all right, opening two) have riches to savour indeed. Chiefly, in the first, the gutsy performance of Tanya Moodie as 'aving-it-all, high-flying mum Meg, who soon lets slip that her very singular definition of "juggling" is being able to conduct a fluent South American conference-call while throwing up in a pub toilet, having just been arrested for pissing in the street. To, first of all, Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin) and her jealous disdain - her wordless, mouth-stretching half-sneers to every one of Meg's matey gambits are a joy to half-behold - and, then, her sneaking admiration: might Meg even be a role-model, a mentor, someone who can help her navigate the vicissitudes of middle-class London motherhood?

No.

Julia sinks back to her comfort levels of harried incompetence - and even below those levels, soon taking to arriving at the losers' table in the cafe in sweatpants and cheap faux-furry coat. Even Liz, the wonderfully sane-speaking Diana Morgan, raises an eyebrow: "You look like a mental patient."

Is Julia about to have that long-threatened, possibly delicious, full English breakdown? And how long can the (equally well-drawn) Amanda (Lucy Punch), arriving way late to the "hygge" beanfeast with her over-niche shop ("store," she will insist), funded by hubby's guilt-money over the split, continue to sell scented candles at £89? Cards only ("we're cashless!")? I'm going to wait to find out, and suggest you toy weekly with it: subtler than Sharon Horgan's Catastrophe, with input from a further three writers, this is at most turns a joy, although occasionally the type of joy felt upon the absence of pain about 40 seconds after stepping on a piece of Lego in your bare feet.

In praise of Motherland

Sharon Horgan and co's clever, funny, oestrogen-fuelled comedy is an antidote to the patronising delusions of smug parents..

The fake news in Motherland (BBC2) was that the new mum at the school gates, Meg (Tanya Moodie), was a superwoman.

Apparently an international business consultant, she struck deals in multiple languages on her mobile while raising five well-adjusted children and enjoying a blissful marriage.

Naturally, Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin) loathed her. 'Where's your secret sadness?' she fumed. But this is Motherland, where parenthood is the seventh circle of hell and every day when you haven't strangled one of your little darlings can be counted as a success.

No surprises, then, when Meg turned out to be a raging alcoholic who regarded hijacking a bus and confrontations with the police as ordinary hazards of a good binge.

Even if this comedy is a trifle cynical and earthy for some tastes, it's always worth it for the deadpan world-weariness of Liz (Diane Morgan) -- who reckons the chief compensation for being a single mother is getting ten per cent off at Dorothy Perkins.

TV review: Motherland, BBC2

It was announced just before this second series started that there would be a third series of Motherland. It's be interesting to see how it evolves as there are a few changes in the opening episode of the second run.