Greg Davies (I)

Channel 4 sitcom Man Down remains glorious. Sometimes it can be a touch too slapstick. Think George Formby walking into an open manhole with a cheese-eating grin. Carrying a large cheese. But Greg Davies somehow manages to inhabit the soul of pratfall without making it too... cheesy. He's a big man, unafraid to be big or to let us smell his socks. Most of the lines I cannot print, even in the Observer. It is winningly, tragically, funny.

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Third series of misadventures for Greg Davies's shambolic teacher. A disciplinary carpeting from the authorities is on the cards due to a simple misjudgment over a wine box and Dan's drama class. The route to avoid being ostracised by Ofsted lies with the school's tempestuously eccentric caretaker (played, in keeping with the show's knack for grabbing big names, by Steven Berkoff). What could possibly go wrong? Regular viewers of Man Down might well guess.

Greg Davies on Man Down Series 3

This series, Davies says Dan will be "forced into more decisions".

That dreadful series of Top Gear was good for one thing at least: it featured the gigantic Greg Davies one week as the Star In A Reasonably Priced And Frankly Humiliating Cheap Copy Of Clarkson's Ideas. I jumped for joy at Davies's appearance as this surely meant his brilliant sitcom, Man Down, was coming back. I love the show. Even my dog loves it.

Davies plays Dan, a pathetic, lovelorn, middle-aged man who hates his job and lives with his mum, "Old Woman" who, this week, brings a new boyfriend home - a brash Yorkshireman played by Tony Robinson who takes a furious dislike to Dan. Things are tough at school when Dan is summoned to a disciplinary hearing. He must try and destroy his HR file but a new janitor, a mentally unstable Serbian played by Steven Berkoff, stands in the way.

Man Down Series 3 review

For the classroom scenes provide so many of the best lines in the sharp script, often from the kids in Dan's drama class.

The penultimate episode in this daft challenge series finds our intrepid taskees charged by Greg Davies with rescuing a cat from a tree and smuggling an entire pineapple upon their person. Prizes on offer this week include a range of our comics' most-treasured "blue" items, including Doc Brown's copy of Feel No Fret by the Average White Band, a blue riot helmet from Richard Osman and a mucky fridge magnet from Jon Richardson. It's all to play for, then.

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TV preview: Man Down, C4

Good to see Greg Davies back as helpless, hapless, hopeless giant man-child teacher Dan. There are some nice new treats in the supporting cast too, but they have to have pretty big personalities to stand a chance of competing with Davies. Luckily they are.

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