Ellie White

Semi-Detatched review

The 20-minute pilot first aired 18 months ago but resurfaced last night to herald a full series, launching in early August. It's hilarious, and very welcome as a new outlet for Lee Mack's comic genius.

The Other One, Holly Walsh's gleeful twin-family saga ended (if you've been watching in real time) on a real high. It had many terrific lines, mainly - as usual - from Ellie White as Cathy, whom you suspect the writer most identifies with. One clue: she gives her the sharpest lines. After she has been given a particularly gaudy tiara-and-mascara makeover by Cat (Lauren Socha), dowdy safe Cathy declares to the mirror: "Oh My God! I love it... I look like I could have my own show! On ITV3!" Marilyn (Siobhan Finneran) finally makes it out of the house, Rebecca Front's Tess finally forgives cheating Colin (Simon Greenall) and, after a cheeky red herring, the stage is well set for a second series. There have been harder recommissions to predict.

TV review: The Other One series 1 episode 1

How well you get on with The Other One will depend on your tolerance for cringe factor.

TV review: The Other One

Despite all the jokes about class, Marcus's disastrous 'dick pics' disaster and the essential betrayal at the heart of the Walcott's marriage, there's a real sweetness to the developing relationship between the two Catherines which makes this a joy to watch.

In September 2017, I wrote that The Other One was a BBC comedy pilot in search of a commission: it gained that commission and returned this week - albeit with the rerun pilot (boo), but over the next six weeks it will delight and enthral with high humour and low blows from writers Holly Walsh and Pippa Brown. The only true mystery is why the fandoodle it took so long.

It is a glorious slice-of-life comedy, way superior to so much else on these days. OK, the plot is a twitch forced - bigamist dies, leaving two disparate families, in two utterly disparate class zones - but the warmth of all within, the sharpness of the writing, the performances, particularly from Ellie White as the smiling uptight coil of a spring who can't quite leave a middle-class totem untouched and Lauren Socha as the unsprung spring who can't quite leave a working-class totem unsaid... in this will lie a certain dramatic magic.

TV preview: The Other One, BBC One

Whether by luck or judgement the BBC is on a roll at the moment with sitcoms featuring strong female casts.

The Other One: funny, rude and piercingly sad

In this comedy of affairs and second wives, we see the family as I like to see it: generous, expansive, richly humane.

TV review: The Windsors, series three, episode six

If it continues along in the vein of the majority of the third series it'll be increasingly disappointing and only fitfully amusing.