Dolly Wells

Radio Times review

Dolly Wells and Emily Mortimer really are best pals, a relationship they cruelly twist as they play themselves in a naturalistic comedy of subtle embarrassment and unspoken resentment. You know you're in good hands when the opening minute sets up the premise with ruthless economy: a swift montage tells us that Dolly's split from her boyfriend and invited herself to LA, where Emily's shooting her biggest movie yet. Their fatal error is to agree that Dolly work as Emily's assistant, a power imbalance that puts a fleck of poison in all their conversations.

Improvising in front of intimate hand-held cameras, Wells and Mortimer make every barb and glance scarily convincing. You might not laugh much, but it's thrilling to see a comedy that knows what it's doing so precisely, so quickly.

Best mates Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells play fictionalised versions of themselves in the tale of an actor (Em) who invites her friend (Doll) to Hollywood as her personal assistant. With improvisation and shaky camera-work, the promise of glossiness that comes when Em walks the red carpet with Bradley Cooper is soon blown apart. It could so easily be a jolly tale, but immediately turns dark when Doll is locked out by the pool while Em has her hair done and the best-friend sniping kicks in. Promising.

Five reasons you should watch Sky Living's Doll & Em

Doll & Em, Sky Living's new comedy co-starring and co-written by Dolly Wells and Emily Mortimer, has already received widespread praise from critics.

TV preview: Doll & Em

If Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells have any regrets in their lives, it's filming the pilot for their new series - minus hair styling and make-up.

Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells interview

The two actors - who have been friends since childhood - have written a comedy drama about a star who hires her best friend as her assistant.

Radio Times review

TV action hero Kiefer Sutherland, in London filming a new series of his frenetic drama series 24, gets comfy on the Ross sofa tonight. He probably needs the rest - recent tabloid photos showed him on location running around a block of flats in the capital. After a four-year break the series returns to Sky1 later this year, with Bauer on the run from the CIA.

Also on the show is actress Emily Mortimer, talking about the faintly autobiographical sitcom she's made for Sky Living with best pal Dolly Wells, Doll & Em. And twinkly sex symbol Chris O'Dowd will tell Ross all about his role as a salsa dancer in the Nick Frost comedy film Cuban Fury.

Expect some pearl-clutching tabloid outrage about this. Bernadette Davis's comedy introduces a quartet of girls in their mid-teens who swear, have sex and regularly countermand their mothers and fathers! Yet while parents of girls approaching that age may well blanch, there's some depth to lead character Viva (Adelayo Adedayo), who's rebelling against her dad (Colin Salmon) because he's seeing her school football coach (Dolly Wells).

The script mixes deft set pieces with cheap laughs - the mute girl in a burqa made me uncomfortable - but the direction, by Adam Miller, is consistently great: plenty of swift visual gags and a very funny, lairy girls' football match filmed in slow motion.

"Just because we live on an estate, doesn't mean we're all single mums with drug problems ... I mean, obviously some of us are," says Viva, pointing at her friend Mel. Amber is the dizzy one. Holly is violent and Saz is sarcastic. They all play for the same school football team and banter for England. It's that brand of jaunty depravity made popular by Shameless but Febrezed thoroughly and nicely delivered by the young cast. Plus Dolly Wells is brilliant as their sadistic New Zealand PE teacher. In this opening episode Viva storms out when her dad and his new girlfriend make an announcement.

In tonight's episode of the clean-cut, sweet-natured comedy - think of it as the Larkins in Derbyshire - Loz (Matt King) and Fergie (Steve Edge) fall out over Loz's new girlfriend (Dolly Wells), Bell (Rebecca Night) and Reuben (Ukweli Roach) see a counsellor and Charlie (Finn Atkins) is offered a trial at Derby County much to the delight of her father (Brendan Coyle), who spots a chance to meet a former hero.

I'm going to say something which is going to make me unpopular with most critics - I actually like this show.

Having read other reviews of Campus, the vast majority, especially those in the tabloids, derided this new sitcom by the team behind Green Wing. Most said it was bad because it's too similar to Green Wingp. Are these people mad? That's like saying, "This country has a rubbish football team. It's too much like Brazil's."

Campus, like Green Wing, is great, especially the egotistical, power-crazed and bigoted vice chancellor of Kirke University, Jonty de Wolfe, played by Andy Nyman (most famous for being Derren Brown's right-hand man).

Nyman's character also got panned by the critics, arguing his remarks went too far, comparing him unfavourably to David Brent (the fact they have the same beard doesn't help, I guess). There are key differences here, though.

Brent is a middle-manager, is meant to be a realistic character, and in the end his incompetence results in him getting the boot. Wolfe is the master of a surreal and chaotic world, answering to nobody, and as such is able to get away with what he does because there is no-one able to stop him - at least not yet, but there is another character who is due to appear later in the series who might be able to stop Wolfe.

Among the other Green Wing associations made were comparing their characters to Campus'. The misogynistic English Literature professor Matt Beer (Joseph Millson) was compared to Guy Secretan - and to be fair there are quite a lot of similarities - and his relationship with Maths lecturer Imogen Moffat (Lisa Jackson) is similar to that between Guy and Caroline Todd.

I also read one critic comparing mechanical engineering lecturer Lydia Tennant (Dolly Wells) to Sue White, which I think is totally wrong. With all of her idiosyncrasies, odd mannerisms and pomposity I'd argue if anything that she's more like Alan Statham. It is in fact Wolfe who is most like Sue White, but only with much more power.

I have to admit, though, there are some problems with the show. Firstly, the camerawork is quite unprofessional, with some dodgy cuts (watch the scene when Wolfe is on a megaphone talking to a female student about a degree in arseology - his left hand is suddenly on a rail, then on the megaphone and back on the rail again) in this episode in particular.

And in the end I just know Channel 4 will axe the show. The first episode was watched by only 718,000 people, as previously mentioned several times it's been written off by the critics, and nothing I've written will change any of the minds of the bigwigs who run the network.

But in truth, the main reason that Campus is on Channel 4 in the first place is because they decided to axe Green Wing; so if you don't like Campus, don't blame the writers or the other people behind the show, blame Channel 4 for axing the original great work in the first place.