Greg Davies (I)

Greg Davies: The Back of My Mum's Head review

Despite the rather abortive final passage of Davies' second solo touring show, there's material here strong enough to be a pleasure to repeat, both from his perspective and ours.

Review - Greg Davies

Comedy's puerile Zeus, Greg Davies, is spoon-feeding us comedy's lower-hanging fruit, but it tastes gooooood ...

Greg Davies's favourite childhood activities

Adulthood is the central theme of comedy giant Greg Davies's new show. But Ben Williams discovers he hasn't lost his silly side as he shares some of his favourite childhood activities.

Greg Davies on the best comedy clubs

The comedian shares his favourite places to catch some comedy.

Cuckoo extends his sphere of spiritual influence to Ken's father-in-law, after he deduces that a visiting cat is in fact the reincarnation of Ken's dead wife, Debra. Again, everyone bar Ken and Dylan is taken in by Cuckoo's bullshit, perhaps giving the first glimmer that there might not be much else to this likable new sitcom. Cuckoo (Andy Samberg) and Ken (Greg Davies) hog most of the best lines as usual, but the setups humiliating Ken and venerating Cuckoo appear to be treading much the same ground as previous weeks.

Greg Davies: The Back of My Mum's Head

Greg Davies was a drama teacher for 13 years before starting out in comedy. Some of his former pupils from Sandhurst School are in the audience tonight, and it is easy to see how a man with such a good grasp of play and of the childish mind would have been popular tutor.

Three episodes into the series, and Cuckoo is settling down nicely. The premise is exploited to the full, the scripts are consistently amusing, and the performances of Greg Davies, as the bumptious, blustering dad, and Andy Samberg, as the pseudo-spiritualist slacker son-in-law, complement each other perfectly. Plus, any show featuring Helen Baxendale is a good thing by definition.

BBC Three's Cuckoo was my pick of the week not long ago, but I never got around to reviewing it. The premise has middle class couple Ken (Greg Davies) and Lorna (Helen Baxendale)-from the Midlands, just to further stress how intermediate they are - discovering their beautiful daughter has married an American hippie calling himself "Cuckoo" (Andy Samberg) while on vacation. From there it runs through the expected culture clash comedy check list: dad hates that his baby girl's married a New Age loser; mum's initially concerned but grows to like her daughter's exotic other half; and Cuckoo is oblivious to the division he's causing in this close-knit suburban family.

The premise doesn't feel like it will last long before exhausting itself, and the first few episodes weren't particularly funny, but there are things Cuckoo has that rescues it from the doldrums: like a fantastic cast and oodles of charm. Samberg (a major star in the US, best known for appearing on Saturday Night Live) lights up the screen whenever he's around, and overcomes the fact Cuckoo's a rather thin caricature of modern-day hippies; while Davies is doing a superb job as the exasperated father desperate to get rid of his son-in-law without breaking his daughter's heart in the process. Davies had a memorable role in The Inbetweeners as the sociopathic teacher Mr Gilbert, but Cuckoo feels like it's truly announcing him to the world of sitcom. He's really good and has a fantastic dynamic with Samberg, which was largely responsible for the brilliant third episode where Ken and Cuckoo finally managed to bond thanks to recreational drugs.

I just wish Cuckoo was a touch funnier without relying so heavily on the performances of Samberg and Davies to raise smiles and pull it through, but I'll keep watching because it's well-made and has undeniable heart.

Greg Davies, The Dome, Brighton

Super-sized comic proves thoroughly capable of dragging a crowd into his world.