Georgia Pritchett

Georgia Pritchett wrote the relentlessly bland Life Of Riley for BBC One, so I approached her latest effort Quick Cuts (BBC Four) with trepidation.

The good news? Well, it's not bland: it had Doon Mackichan tripping on funny pills and jokes about comas. The bad news? Where to start...

Semi-improvised, which would explain lines such as 'I once caught my finger caught in a walnut', Quick Cuts is less a sitcom and more a sketch show.

Set in a hairdressing salon staffed by losers and loons, the action quickly cuts back and forth between the daft misadventures of the salon workers and weird one-liners involving customers, all of whom have been hired from Oddballs Are Us.

It's not a bad concept but unless you find the idea of blue wee (Mackichan saddled with a limp running joke) and calling a client 'Mrs Pubehair' funny, then Quick Cuts is about as funny as a slow-motion back, sack and crack.

A skewed new sitcom by Georgia Pritchett, who wrote Life of Riley for BBC1 but is in much saltier, funnier form here. Doon Mackichan is Sue, proprietor of a hair salon where the staff struggle to focus on cutting barnets properly. Foolhardy customers come and go, mostly playing stooges as chaos sets in. The scattergun style and lines like "You just frittered away my boobs on a giant chipmunk" could easily lead to a lack of warm authenticity, but don't: the gang feels real. Tonight, Sue hoovers some Mexican tranquillisers, a comic short cut Mackichan brilliantly exploits.

Quick Cuts: Confessions from a hairdressers

Writer Georgia Pritchett explains how Quick Cuts is a cross between a sitcom and a sketch show.

I quite like Life of Riley, Georgia Pritchett's returning sitcom about an extremely extended suburban family. There are some good jokes, well structured plotlines and solid performances all round. But for series three could the kids wear name tags, possibly colour co-ordinated according to family affiliation, because I still haven't worked out which is which.

Life of Riley Series 2 review

Inexplicably, Georgia Pritchett's laugh-free show rises from the dead. Anyone in search of a proper family comedy should try The Simpsons.

Life of Riley: the return of the family sitcom

The writer of the BBC's latest family-orientated sitcom reveals if this often-used formula is back in fashion again.