Dominic Coleman

In conversation with Dominic Coleman

Dominic Coleman talks about his role in Heading Out...

Radio Times review

The central character of Heading Out was Sara, a 40-year-old vet, afraid of commitment and very afraid of telling her parents she is gay. Except it wasn't Sara up there, it was Sue Perkins. The wry rhythms, the crafted wit tempered by stuttering diffidence, the coy friendliness twinkling through that protective fringe: Sue Perkins.

So you might say, well, that doesn't work. We don't believe it's Sara. Unlike Grandma's House or Seinfeld or Ellen, the star isn't playing someone with their own name. Perkins isn't meant to be herself, but she inescapably is because we know her too well, in a way most actors cannily never allow.

The solution, in theory: cast someone else. But this wasn't an option, partly because Sara was totally Perkins in script as well as performance, but also because such a thin alter ego let our affection transfer easily. You like Sue Perkins? (Yes.) Then you'll like her playing a woman who looks and sounds the same.

Lose her presence and you'd lose the show's considerable charm, since the supporting cast were mostly struggling as caricatured oddballs: Dominic Coleman as a neat freak, Joanna Scanlan as a bellowy, hockey-sticks life coach hired by Sara's friends to help her come out fully, Mark Heap very Mark Heapy in a bit part as an officious pet-crematorium manager.

Nothing felt real, particularly the digression when Sara played netball and the opposition performed a fearsome dance routine before the game. "It seems to be some sort of inner-city, asthmatic Haka," said Sara, exactly as Perkins would in a documentary or panel show.

The Sara/Sue thing can't sustain Heading Out for long. Sara needs to stand on her own, even if it's through Perkins revealing parts of her own character that the fans haven't seen before, and the dialogue needs to sound a lot less like the carefully written words of a presenter. So it was pleasing to see a glint of this in episode one, when Sara met a potential love interest (Shelley Conn) in the park and ineptly chatted her up.

Viewers nervous about this being a "lesbian sitcom" were probably waiting for one of them to announce that they were gay, but nobody needed to because the writing and acting were nuanced and true. Sara and Sue were both out of their comfort zone - and rising to the challenge.

Sue Perkins has been conspicuously absent from recent British cake bakes.

Now we know why - she's been busy writing and starring in this vet-based sitcom about the anxieties of 39-year-old gay vet Sara trying and failing to come out to her parents.

After a dodgy start - cat lovers beware - things perk up when Perkins's priceless comedy pals, including Dominic Coleman, Joanna Scanlan and Mark Heap, provide light relief from Sara's perplexing love life.

Sue Perkins has become one of the faces of BBC Two in recent years, presenting all maner of food and pop-historical programming. Now she returns to her comic roots in this self-written sitcom, starring as Sara, a successful female vet about to turn 40 - but still frightened to tell her parents (Jeff Rawle and Harriet Walter) that she's gay. Her motley gang of friends set an ultimatum: if Sara fails to reveal her sexuality within six weeks, they will. To make matters even more chaotic, they arrange for her to attend a series of sessions with an eccentric life coach.

In her acting debut, Perkins is likeably beleaguered and sardonic, while there's a strong supporting cast of Nicola Walker (Spooks, Last Tango in Halifax), Dominic Coleman (Miranda), Shelley Conn (Mistresses) and Joanna Scanlan (The Thick of It, Getting On) - not to mention lots of four-legged extras. Guest stars also pop up throughout the six-part run, including June Brown, Steve Pemberton, Mark Heap, Dawn French and Perkins's Great British Bake Off co-host and original comedy partner Mel Giedroyc[/o]. Pitched somewhere between the slapstick Miranda and the sardonic Grandma's House, it's a highly promising, enjoyably daft opener.

In tonight's highly strung, celeb-sprinkled outing, Miranda realises she doesn't love homely Mike, and "Queen of Pushy" Penny soon finds a way to make her dinner party the talk of the tennis club.

The episode is both hysterical and maddening, its plot riven with sitcom complication, but the outcome will make you wish the finale had followed on immediately afterwards. A word of praise for Sarah Hadland as Miranda's sparky pal Stevie, who always keeps the laughs ticking over with a sulky strut here and a beautifully tortured metaphor there. And for Dominic Coleman as a total stranger who somehow becomes entangled in every plot twist.

I didn't think it was possible to detest a TV show within its first 30 seconds, but hidden camera prank atrocity Meet the Parents proved me wrong.

Take two young lovebirds, one of whom is meeting their partner's family for the first time. How lovely. But wait, there's a twist: unbeknownst to him or her, the family are actually actors! If they can endure five hours in their outrageous company, the couple win a holiday. If not - according to the punchably arch voiceover - their relationship might be ruined forever. Hilarious!

The actors perform at such an intensely crazy pitch, it's hard to believe that anyone would fall for it: unless you're a credulous idiot like the bloke in this episode, who swallowed their embarrassingly obvious comedy antics in one gormless gulp.

In the few months they'd been together, his girlfriend had apparently neglected to mention that her mother was a highly-strung lunatic, her brother was a pantomime comedy rapper, and her father was recognisable TV actor Dominic Coleman. Weird.

Still, it's something to show the grandkids. "Wow, what was it like being in a hateful E4 reality series, Grandpa?" "Happiest day of our lives, children, happiest day of our lives."

Hidden camera shows don't come much grubbier than Meet The Parents (E4), in which a relationship is put to the test when a boyfriend thinks he's meeting his girlfriend's family for the first time. The catch being that the family members are all played by actors with characters from stereotype central: hormonal mum, idiot brother, strict dad etc.

Skipping over why victim Rich had been going out with Carla for eight months yet had never clapped eyes on any of her family, Meet The Parents panned out like a 1970s sitcom, Rich tangling with a randy gardener, a cake-smashing potential mum-in-law and squirming sex talk without losing his cool. Or finishing a sentence.

If he walked out he would lose a holiday he knew nothing about. It was all oddly diverting, though I couldn't buy into the fake family, as fake dad (Dominic Coleman) was a familiar face from countless comedy sketch shows. Rich, fair play to him, wasn't about to give the game away.

Taking the mockumentary format into the world of under-11s football, this new sitcom shows signs of promise. Steve Edge starts as Terry, a pushy dad whose belief in his son's on-the-pitch prowess has tipped over into an unhealthy obsession.

Faced with a bad-tempered coach, his wife's indifference and a child more interested in cookery that Cristiano Ronaldo, Terry's thwarted ambitions are neatly played out and he enjoys strong support from a cast including Tanya Franks (Karen from Pulling) as the team's ballsy manager and Dominic Coleman as her browbeaten husband.