Gwyneth Powell

Gwyneth Powell dies aged 76

While mostly famous for playing Mrs McClusky in Grange Hill, in comedy she is most famous for playing Polly, mother of Greg Davies' Dan in Man Down.

TV review: Man Down, C4

Greg Davies returns for a fourth series of Man Down and I sense a bit of a theme emerging. He has previously had a run-in with a turkey and in the first episode of the new run of this tragic, anarchic sitcom he has an oversized chicken thrown at him. But that is just a small indignity compared to some of his other issues in this opening instalment.

Look out for the special makeover tent tonight as Dan's friend Jo sets off on yet another hare-brained career.

If Jo represents the mad end of the spectrum, Dan, who's somewhere in the middle, would really like to be more like his other friend Brian, a super-straight accountant who seems doomed to spend all his spare time driving Dan around and generally coming to his rescue.

This week Dan is trying to prove to his ex-girlfriend Naomi that he's trustworthy enough to attend his small niece's birthday party - an idea which his lovely twinkly mother (Gwyneth Powell, who was Mrs McCluskey in Grange Hill) finds utterly hilarious.

She may well be right.

But amidst all the juvenile slapstick, Greg Davies has somehow created a bunch of characters we're becoming incredibly fond of - no mean feat.

On Tuesday night, BBC Three aired the first episode of the six-part series The Gemma Factor. About a 20-year-old from a small Yorkshire village who desperately dreams of being famous for being famous, I expected it to be dripping with irony. The subject matter, after all, is ripe for some very easy satirical pickings. It's opening sequence, of Gemma skipping through the dreary village, spreading colour wherever she goes while singing a feelgood song seemed to be an ironic counterbalance to the cynical black comedy that I thought must surely follow. But, no. It's like that all the way through, positive to the point of nausea, crammed with lazy, stereotypical characters and without a single funny line.

There are rare glimpses at an attempt at satire, such as when Gemma wonders what the point of privacy is, but they fail to hit the target, and characters who try to make Gemma look at things in a more rational way, such as her friend Nell, are sidelined. Gwyneth Powell (Mrs McCluskey from Grange Hill) does put in a good turn as Gemma's Nan, Anna Gilthorpe's portrayal of ditsy Gemma is so sweet and full of optimism that it feels cruel to criticise the programme, and yes, of course there's a place for upbeat, jovial comedy. The problem is that it feels like a Children's BBC sitcom with knob gags, although that is perhaps being a little unkind to Big Cook and Little Cook. Who exactly was this aimed at? And what is the point it's trying to make? If it is, as I suspect, attempting to satirise the current obsession with fame and celebrity at the expense of talent, then it fails entirely. This is probably the first and last time I'll say the following sentence: Leigh Francis does it much, much better.

Gemma Collinge is 20 years and 10 months old and hell-bent on being famous by the time she's 21. What she's going to be famous for she hasn't figured out yet, although you can already imagine Anna Gilthorpe, who plays her, wobbling gamely about in next year's Dancing On Ice.

This gentle sitcom has a lot in common with BBC2's Beautiful People - not least because Gemma's best friend Jeff is a screamingly gay window dresser. It also helps that the small town in this case is the postcard-worthy West Yorkshire town of Lumb - it's the kind of place many of us dream of escaping to, rather than from.

Claire King from Emmerdale is Jeff's mum and Emma's Nana is played by Gwyneth Powell - aka Grange Hill's Mrs McCluskey.

Like Gemma herself, this is too fluffy, blonde and obvious to qualify as biting satire but to slate it would be like kicking a puppy.

A new BBC3 sitcom set the beautiful scenery of West Yorkshire, but with the sort of scatological and sexual references that are seemingly compulsory for a BBC3 comedy commission these days. The odd combination does make this seem like some form of Two Pints of Summer Wine, but writer Tony Pitts (who also appears as a cafe owner with OCD) has crafted a fluffy view of Gemma (Anna Gilthorpe), a girl whose desperation to become famous leads her to make some bad career choices, including hooking up with a crooked agent (Angus Barnett).

Gilthorpe is charming as the ditzy wannabe and manages to make the cast of extreme caricatures around her more tolerable. Standing out in the cast, though, are Gwyneth Powell (aka Grange Hill's legendary Mrs McCluskey) as Gemma's Nan and Emma Kearney as Janet, Kenny's scheming wife/assistant.