Caroline Moran

Radio Times review

Germaine needs new pants, Yoko needs a new bra and young Wyatt (the only boy in the house) needs some male bonding with Grampy.

Caitlin and Caroline Moran's rollicking comedy gathers pace with a girls shopping trip that generates more assured quick-fire wit and knowing literary-minded gab in Wolves clothing.

The performances (especially from Rebekah Staton's mum) remain spot on. And while it sometimes feels as if the writing is a little pleased with itself, there's no doubting the Moran sisters' ability to create their own joyously eccentric comedy world.

Ben Dowell, Radio Times, 23rd March 2015

The teenage girls living in the council house in Wolverhampton in Raised By Wolves (Channel 4, Monday) are a bracing breath of fresh air. If you saw the 2013 pilot you'll know what to expect; this semi-autobiographical sitcom about growing up in the 1980s is written by Caitlin Moran, the journalist and How to Be a Woman author, and Caroline Moran, her comedy-writing sister.

There's Germaine/Caitlin (played by Helen Monks), a stroppy 16-year-old sex-fixated extrovert; Aretha/Caz (Alexa Davies), her sarcastic, world-weary sidekick sister; and a gaggle of smaller children, "the babbies", in a chaotic bookish household headed by Della (Rebekah Staton), their no-nonsense mum.

Now commissioned for a series (under its Irish director, Ian FitzGibbon) and set in the present day, the first episode is mostly about Yoko getting her period, necessitating a family outing to "the aisle of shame" at Boots. "I don't think I want to be a woman, Mum," says Yoko as Germaine - she really is annoying - gleefully piles on the bloody (and hilarious) horror stories. "Nobody does, love, but the men are too chicken shit to handle it, so here we are," says Mum.

The girls love their movies and literary references, and inevitably, in their nonconformist clothes - Germaine channels Helena Bonham Carter - they're bullied. "There are CCTV cameras everywhere, you know," warns Aretha as a yob tries to steal her scarf. "George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four was entirely prescient."

They talk like this all the time. The only out-of-sync element punctuating the knowing dialogue and girl-power capers is a cheesy subplot involving Grandad, in his fluffy robe, getting prepped to seduce Granny over a pot of beef bourguignon that seems to have wandered in from a 1980s sitcom.

In just about every interview with Caitlin Moran, Wolverhampton - her birthplace and the setting for Raised By Wolves - is referred to in a way that suggests it's a British shorthand for cultural sinkhole. But Della, who is fond of a pithy life lecture when she's not blithely ignoring the kids, explains, "We're not northern twats, we're not southern twats, we're midlands twats." If you were ever a teenage girl - or, better still, have one - this is refreshingly honest and occasionally laugh-out-loud stuff.

Bernice Harrison, The Irish Times, 21st March 2015