Greg Davies (I)

Greg Davies's tragi-comic creation is turning out to be more complex than he looked at first. He's not merely a hapless buffoon, he's also prone to levels of denial and wishful thinking that are almost endearing. But not to his ex-girlfriend. Dan tries to win Naomi back this week by turning up at her door and reminding her that although she complains they never had any fun, there was that time when he did a dance involving a helicopter impression with part of his body...Can she deny that was fun? No, she can't. His other plan to win her back involves getting his car door fixed (at ultra-cheap garage "Mad Nobby's") and buying some mince to cook her. The results are childishly, stupidly funny.

Strictly fans will find an extra treat tonight as Dan and his friend Jo perform a salsa to entertain some hospital patients.

It's all part of Dan's desperate scheme to try and convince his former girlfriend Naomi that he's a fun person with a fully rounded social life. Not much chance of that, as tonight he is also relying on the seductive power of mince to win her round. And what woman can resist mince?

Thanks to Greg Davies' towering energetic idiocy, Man Down offers reliable silliness - and it's the ideal vehicle for Davies to exploit his background in both teaching and stand-up. But he doesn't save all the best gags for himself and the support from Roisin Conaty and Mike Wozniak as his best mates Jo and Brian are outstanding.

The casting of Rik Mayall as Dan's father is inspired, and the kids who have the misfortune to be Dan's drama students are game, recognising he is a bigger kid than any of them.

Dan (Greg Davies) is still in deep denial about Naomi's departure. But what isn't clear at this stage of this wilfully quirky sitcom is why she was with him in the first place. Dan is a boisterous, selfish, puerile child in a large man's body. Despite earning his living as a teacher, he addresses bespectacled pupils as 'four eyes'. He performs tricks with his cock to impress women. In fact, the only aspect of Dan to attract sympathy is his even more loathsome father (a gleefully well-cast Rik Mayall).

Man Down is clearly meant as a real life cartoon of sorts. The scenarios are ridiculous, the humour basic and broad and the performances exaggerated. But to stick with the show, we'll need someone to root for. And Dan just doesn't feel like that man until the final frame of tonight's episode where he realises that a plate of over-cooked mince isn't going to woo his sweetheart back. Despair for Dan, but a glimmer of hope for the series perhaps? Either way, Man Down needs a little more of this to avoid one-trick-pony ignominy.

Greg Davies' Man Down disappointed me

It's a sad day when a rape scene in Downton Abbey can get people up in arms, but bizarre jokes about child abuse and gay bashing go unnoticed.

Previously The Inbetweeners' grouchy headteacher, Greg Davies stars as Dan, a teacher capable of rivalling Jay, Neil et al for immaturity. Listlessly plodding through a life that has left him leeching off his parents and lumbered with dysfunctional friend Jo (Roisin Conaty), Dan spends much of this opener determined to win back his girlfriend by getting a mortgage, or at least a second pair of trousers. A pretty by-the-books start, but if we get more of Dan's eccentric dad (Rik Mayall), it's one to keep an eye on.

The unfeasibly tall Greg Davies, best known for his explosions of exasperation in Cuckoo and The Inbetweeners, reveals his surreal side in this mildly manic sitcom which charts the comic misadventures of Dan.

A teacher who makes Jack Whitehall's Alfie in Bad Education look like an Ofsted box-ticker, Dan delights in indulging his pupils with wild flights of sci-fi fantasy, while outside the classroom his personal life is falling down quicker than his trousers. It's all mildly bonkers.

Greg Davies brings his gift for the deranged to a new sitcom that is so loaded with childish eccentricity it practically bludgeons us into laughter. Davies is the six-foot-eight comedian who made a name for himself as a comic actor in The Inbetweeners and Cuckoo. There he played exasperated adults; here he plays maddening man-child Dan, a hopeless oaf who in the opening scene fantasises about designing a fart-powered hovercraft while his girlfriend points out he still hasn't replaced their broken light bulb.

When she finally decides to leave him, Dan is driven to new lows, not helped by losing his trousers and being attacked by his dad (Rik Mayall) in a bear outfit. None of this is subtly nuanced or anything, but there are real, stupid laughs, not least at the sight of Dan driving round in an old banger with his seat so far back he has his arm out of the rear window.

Greg Davies's latest venture into sitcomland is comedy writ large, from the initial fart joke, to a pair of lost trousers and some slapstick scenes that are so preposterous as to be surreal.

The premise is a tried and tested traditional one - newly dumped, middle-aged teacher (Davies) lives in a flat attached to the house of his mum and dad (Rik Mayall, in a near-perfect piece of casting, if you overlook the fact that Davies and Mayall are roughly the same age), and is surrounded by idiosyncratic/idiotic 'fucking mental' friends who do things such as sing him out of bouts of angst under the disapproving gaze of a battleaxe café proprietor.

It's touches such as these - and Davies's utterly silly but joyous classroom scenes, and lines such as 'He's a good boy. He's normal. He's not into your rubber shorts, your plastic fists, your glory holes,' delivered by the local tailor discussing his work experience schoolboy - that could have you warming to both Davies and the series, particularly if you like puerile, juvenile, violent comedy. Ageing The Young Ones fans will love it.

If you were a fan of Greg Davies as the terrifying Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners, you'll love this new sitcom he's written... his dad (a brilliant Rik Mayall) bullies him, his girlfriend is sick of him and his friends are crazy. It's a promising debut.

Anyone who enjoys the madcap stand-up routines of Greg Davies will love his new sitcom... it is very funny.