Derren Litten

Banish the winter blues by flopping down on a sun lounger at the Hotel Solana, the grubbiest four-star flophouse in all the Costas (as in Spanish coast rather than coffee shop chain) and checking out the farcical antics of the package holiday crew. It's business as bawdy usual in Derren Litten's sunburnt sitcom, with Splash! star Jake Canuso shaking the cocktails behind the bar as the Solana's ragbag clientele - led by the gruesome Garveys and shameless swingers Donald and Jacqueline - bed in for another series. This Is England's roly-poly Perry Benson is good value as new recruit Clive, who arrives with statuesque spouse Tonya and troublesome son Tiger.

The Spa stars the incomparable Rebecca Front as the long-suffering head of a health, beauty and fitness centre, where staff and clients alike prove a constant source of grief, inconvenience and aggravation. The writer and creator is Derren Litten, who hit comedy pay dirt with Benidorm, ITV's most successful sitcom in years. Cynics might say ITV's only successful sitcom in years.

Despite the involvement of Front and Litten, I still didn't expect much from The Spa. Possibly because the basic premise reminded me of the late and lamentable The Brittas Empire, but more likely because the show is being broadcast on Sky Living. In all my years of flicking up and down the endless array of channels on offer, I have never found reason to stop and dally at Sky Living, or even work out what it was there for.

Well, knock me down with a gym ball, but The Spa is rather splendid. The characters are fun, the storylines outrageous, and the script fearless and successful in its pursuit of big out-loud laughs.

Rebecca Front holds centre stage as Alison, former Leighton Buzzard slimmer of the decade, whose imperious management style comprises brutal insensitivity complemented by a total absence of tact. Front fends off scene-stealing turns from a talented cast, most notably Frances Barber as boozed-up best mate Ginny, Tim Healy as the handyman who is quite literally too big for his breeches and Litten himself - it's your show, mate, you cast yourself in it - as an overweight, wheelchair-bound fitness instructor.

There are one or two funny moments in this second edition of Derren Litten's new health-club comedy - Alison (Rebecca Front) and her peculiar sleeping arrangements; Davina (Debbie Chazen) trying to realign the chakras of a flatulent punter; and Cheryl Fergison as insulted customer Ms Wylde being fobbed off with a colonic. The performances make this watchable.

But I'm still waiting for Frances Barber, as Alison's stable-owning mate Ginny, to get something worth her spit. And the addition of a Polish chef/plumber called - wait for it - Bolek seems to be heading nowhere and is just another sign of the woolly randomness of the script.

The spa and fitness industry gets a saucy scrub in this new sitcom led by British Comedy Award-winning Rebecca Front of The Thick Of It fame. Fresh from Benidorm writer Derren Litten, this yogatastic romp sees Front shimmy into the spanking new uniform of The Spa's team manager Alison Crabbe - Leighton Buzzard's slimmer of the decade. Subtle it ain't, so only time will tell if this one massages its way into our funny bones.

Rebecca Front is almost unrecognisable as blonde health club manageress and "Leighton Buzzard's slimmer of the decade" Alison Crabbe. Cheryl Fergison (EastEnders' Ev) plays an affronted punter, Bergita (sounds like "big eater"), while Tim Healy is a well-endowed handyman barely contained by his shorts. And the ever-arch Frances Barber pops up as... well, her role isn't clear in this first episode; maybe next week.

So, a promising ensemble for a sitcom that reads like a retread of The Brittas Empire, is a tad short on laughs and perhaps needed more sessions on a cross trainer before public exposure. Still, The Spa is the brainchild of Derren Litten, creator of the heroically bawdy Benidorm, which I won't hear a word against, so it could well take off in coming weeks. And this time, Litten has put himself in the frame as an aerobics instructor in a wheelchair.

We can imagine the pitch: 'Benidorm meets The Brittas Empire'. And if that was indeed the goal, The Spa (created by Benidorm mastermind Derren Litten) succeeds admirably.

Rebecca Front does a professional job as the spa manager Alison, keeping the show on the road while her staff, ranging from Nadine Marshall's tyrannical fitness instructor to Tim Healey's well-endowed handyman, threaten to derail it at every turn.

Highlights include the dippy receptionist confusing 'obese' with 'a beast', and an extended sequence in which a cleaner threatens suicide from the roof to a soundtrack so predictable that, if nothing else, makes the art of sitcom-writing look very easy indeed. Cheerful enough, then, but very short on laughs. Benidorm meets The Brittas Empire it is.

Benidorm writer Derren Litten launches a new comedy with the help of an outstanding cast including Rebecca Front and Frances Barber. Alison (Front) is Leighton Buzzard's slimmer of the decade and manager of The Spa, a supposed haven for the stressed but actually rather shrill and brightly coloured. The formidable Barber plays her boozy friend Ginny. No previews were available, but if those two can't provide the plumpers and fillers to Litten's trademark jolly-but-flawed scripts then no one can.

Benidorm writer Derren Litten's new comedy is set in a health club, an arena ripe for humour. And with Rebecca Front shining in the role of contemptuous spa manager Alison the series is more hit than miss. She wants to turn around the fortunes of the spa but is hampered by a wheelchair-bound aerobics instructor (Litten) and a handyman (Tim Healy) with a penchant for wearing "sex pest shorts".

Rebecca Front, er, fronts this new proper British Sky comedy about the gang of misfits and no-hopers running the titular health club. She plays blonde bitch-in-chief Alison Crabbe, the woman charged with sorting out botched beauty treatments, short short-wearing handymen with big penises and sadistic fitness instructors.

Cheryl Fergison, Niky Wardley and Tim Healy are among the ensemble cast of The Spa, which comes from actor and Benidorm creator Derren Litten. You may want to think about cancelling your chemical face peel after this.

The Spa - Rebecca Front interview

"The first page of the script had me laughing out loud," says Rebecca Front, who plays bolshy manageress Alison Crabbe. "It's a mainstream comedy, but it's not obvious or predictable because Derren Litten's writing is so clever.