Frog Stone

Frog Stone interview: Writing 'Bucket' for BBC Four

I know the characters from Bucket inside out but that took a long time.

Frog Stone's comedy-drama concludes with Mim and Fran estranged. Mim's truth-speaking, when she finally gets around to some proper honesty, doesn't much help matters: "You were too fat for the ballet club." Which is a particular shame because Mim has information her exasperated daughter, who returns to her day-to-day life to find herself out of a job, needs to know. Bucket doesn't always quite work but when it finds its rhythm it's very good indeed.

TV review: Bucket, Episode 4

This is a sweet series full of nice performances and genuine chemistry between the two stars.

Part three of the comedy about an incorrigible septuagenarian (Miriam Margolyes) whose cautious adult daughter (writer Frog Stone) feels obliged to help with a wacky list of dying wishes. It's time for second cousin Gemma's wedding, which means much more of Stephanie Beacham as the hellishly snobby and controlling mother of the bride - another archetype too simply drawn for the moments of pathos to take hold. Making a wedding episode feel fresh is a big ask.

TV review: Bucket, Episode Three, BBC4

This gentle series starring Miriam Margolyes and Frog Stone reaches its penultimate episode. It is a shame that there are only four parts because it is only just starting to bed in, albeit very slowly.

TV: Bucket, Episode Two, BBC4 review

The story ebbs and flows but with Mim suffering from a terminal illness - hence the Aldi budget bucket list journey, no swimming with dolphins off the Great Barrier Reef just yet - one can assume that this is building to a climax in the fourth and final episode. Presumably Mim will die a moving death in her daughter's arms or something and we will all sob a bit - unless there are plans for a second series.

Forget Peter Kay. Car share with Miriam Margolyes

Two days after the return of Peter Kay's sitcom-with-seatbelts, Car Share, the BBC decides it's the perfect time to launch another on-the-road comedy starring a bickering couple stuck behind the wheel.

As a piece of scheduling incompetence, it's impressive. But I don't suppose Frog Stone, the writer and co-star of Bucket (BBC4), is applauding. She must feel like a Robin Reliant being bullied off the road by Peter Kay's juggernaut.

The real pity is that Bucket is a much funnier show. It has bawdy jokes, a proper plot and a mother-daughter relationship that isn't so much dysfunctional as dangerously unhinged.

Preview - Bucket

A sitcom starring Miriam Margolyes sounds like it should be recipe for success.

New comedy-drama, created by and starring Frog Stone, in which Fran (Stone) helps dying mum Mim (the irrepressible Miriam Margolyes) fulfil her bucket list via a road trip. This one relies heavily on Margolyes doing her sweetly outrageous thing ("Did I tell you about the time I fellated a smurf?" etc), which is fine, but there's a peculiar sort of roteness and sourness to it also, at least at this stage. Admirably honest, though, and possibly worth sticking with

Bucket tries too hard to make us squirm

Miriam Margolyes plays Mim - a maddening, loud, eccentric old woman - in this new sitcom.

She's celebrating her 70th birthday (70 is the new 30, she insists) by working her way through a bucket list, and the first item is a holiday with her irritable daughter. Other plans include: "Kiss a frog on Lake Titicaca."

Mim is crude, and absolutely blind to everyone's discomfort as she gossips about sex and her daughter's masturbation habits.

Frog Stone plays Fran, her drab and weary daughter. Her only hope in life is that she'll quietly get the promotion she wants, but Mim barges in and is intent on forcing some colour and activity into her existence.

The comedy tries to make us cringe on poor Fran's behalf, but often goes too far and sounds like a grubby schoolboy wrote it, with lines such as "Would you rather dry hump Ann Widdecombe or rim Donald Trump?"