Catherine Shepherd

TV review: Sally4Ever, Sky Atlantic

All I know is I'll be sticking around for the ride. So Julia Davis must be doing something right.

Sally4Ever review

A singular mix of humiliation, emotional agony and bodily fluids skewers the viewer in exquisite agony.

Sally4Ever, review

Julia Davis fans will be intrigued but this bleak comedy feels frustratingly familiar.

Sarah (Catherine Shepherd) pass-aggs Helen (Jo Page) into next week when the latter turns up late to collect Chloe from school. The parents are all talking about their feud by the time the bell rings, so Mark (Tom Ellis) goes to sort things out, but the women have their own, more direct form of negotiation. Some sharp writing and brilliant performances make this another solid comedy go-er for Sky, with the uneasy politics of parenthood guaranteeing broad appeal.

Gates is concerned with the mums and dads, the helicopter parents who clutter up playgrounds with their overprotective faffing, interrupting games and setting back the development of the sportsmen and women of tomorrow.

It's got fewer out-and-out funny lines than Bad Education but there are some nice visual gags and it will probably end up being more truthful. Catherine Shepherd steals the show as the arty, flirty, barking yummy-mummy.

Gavin & Stacey's Joanna Page, Sue Johnston and Tom Ellis (better known as Miranda's love interest) star in a new comedy about the parents who meet daily to pick their kids up from school. Helen (Page) and Mark (Ellis) enrol their daughter in her new primary school, where they encounter the minefield of parental etiquette, volunteering for the PTA and school-gate flirtations. Support from Catherine Shepherd, Ella Kenion and Tony Gardner. Promises good things.

This brand new sketch show sees The Fast Show and Down The Line star Simon Day perform as some of his best known creations at The Mallard, a small provincial theatre with not that much room in it. If you want an idea on sort of place The Mallard is, it's best put by the woman in charge of the box office admitting to adding the phrase "Must see" to acts because the tickets are not shifting.

This week, Day starred as his Yorkshire poet persona Geoffrey Allerton, reading some of his poems and extracts from his memoir Marking Time. Day/Allerton's poetry is excellent, making humorous comments on inner city life and going to art-house movies.

His sombre childhood memories were even funnier, covering the bad relationship Allerton had with his father. He mentions that his father, "threw a jar of Marmite at me," and that he showed him a picture of a naked woman, or as Day/Allerton puts it, the, "lady with the lower beard."

The show is not just about Day and his character, but also of the regular staff and visitors of The Mallard. There is surly Rastafarian technician Goose (Felix Dexter) who gets annoyed about being given jobs outside of his remit, the Leeds-born boss Ron Bone (Simon Greenall) who mocks Allerton's supposedly posh background, and there are the two posh mothers (Arabella Weir and Catherine Shepherd) talking about the problems of employing a "frog" as a nanny.

This has all the marks of becoming a really good series. Future episodes will see Day performing as reformed convict Tony Beckton and his Fast Show classic Tommy Cockles.

New situation comedy. And it's one worth catching. Written by and starring Simon Day, its six episodes feature him as different people who turn up to perform at a small theatre (so small there's a real person taking telephone bookings). The first one Day gives us is Yorkshire poet Geoffrey Allerton, whose observations on his own life ("My dad had big hands, like paddles...") bear more than a passing resemblance to one or two voices often heard on the airwaves. Catherine Shepherd, Arabella Weir and Felix Dexter are among the shining support cast.