Jean Heywood

It's hard not to like Ashley Jensen, the Scottish actress who was catapulted to fame when she played Ricky Gervais's accident-prone best friend Maggie in Extras. Blessed with an open face, a slightly awkward manner and a wry sense of humour - much like Martin Freeman, her male equivalent in The Office, in fact - she's fast become a popular hit with audiences and a shoo-in for TV producers looking to cast a sympathetic female lead. So it may come as a surprise to viewers of this sitcom pilot episode to find her playing a high-powered ad executive called Erin, who has a penchant for shouting things like, "Unless the answer is yes, I don't want to know!" Glimmers of vulnerability appear, though, as she finds her boyfriend Mike (Raza Jaffrey) in bed with another woman and goes on a vengeful spending spree with his money - buying, among other things, a dilapidated farm which, in a moment of blind inspiration, she decides to actually take on. And so Erin arrives in Yorkshire to meet Olive (Jean Heywood), her cantankerous sitting tenant; Clive (Michael Hodgson), the ale-soaked local handyman; Judith (Sylvestra Le Touzel), her horsey neighbour; and a cast of other bucolic types. The result is a sitcom that, given a bit of spit and polish and a generous BBC One budget, might just inherit The Vicar of Dibley's mud-flecked crown.