Anna Maxwell Martin

Episode four of Linehan, Linehan, Horgan and Walsh's excellent comedy about the Ocado-flavoured trials of suburban motherhood, and Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin) is struggling to cope. In what is now a running gag, she calls husband Paul, who is super busy (read: enjoying punting and Pimms). He offers to send his parents to help, but Elizabeth and Geoff only aggravate Julia further, despite Kevin stepping in to offer his "expertise" with the elderly.

Are these the most dislikeable women on TV?

In a British comedy landscape where truly immoral protagonists are overwhelmingly men, Motherland stands out.

This sitcom's comprehensive catalogue of parenting embarrassment moves on to the pool party, a parade of grubby, fleshy indignity given the unlikely twist of Julia (the terrifically taut Anna Maxwell Martin) being forced to attend minutes before a work event at which she had hoped to look pristine. Meanwhile, Liz (Diane Morgan) is waiting for a potential date to ring her back, and pathetic Kevin (Paul Ready) meets his non-pathetic doppelganger nemesis.

Motherland / Detectorists, review

From fundraising cash to buried treasure, these sitcoms are comedy gold.

Motherland, episode 2 review

Magnifying a very special hell in this messy mom-com.

Motherland: one of the best comedies in the last decade

I cannot recommend it highly enough, thanks to its knuckle-chewing awkwardness and leftfield casting.

After the pilot, it was obvious Motherland would return

Creators Sharon Horgan and Graham Linehan mine middle-class motherhood for comedy. These aren't your ordinary middle-class mothers though: they are Mumsnet types that live in large houses in suburban London.

Why Motherland may be a perfect depiction of parenting

Whereas Catastrophe hilariously captured the minutiae of married life, Motherland does the same with parenting.

You should enjoy Motherland, which features the brilliant Diane Morgan (though not here in her usual faux naive alter ego Philomena Cunk), Anna Maxwell Martin and Lucy Punch in a comedy of middle-class manners and mores - think of it as Mumsnet with a more pronounced sense of self-irony. Punch plays the character and anti-hero Amanda, an intensely annoying alpha mum who is a mash-up of Nigella Lawson, Joanna Lumley and Rachel Johnson (by which I mean the worst bits of all of them). Not the funniest thing on the telly, but pretty good satire, and worth catching.

Review: Motherland, episode two, BBC2/iPlayer

If you are or you've been a parent you'll love it, but you'll be watching it through your fingers.