Jimmy Akingbola

Idris Elba returns for a third season of his semiautobiographical comedy about his upbringing in 1980s east London. Walter (Elba) is excited about the arrival of his mother from Sierra Leone, but his brother Valentine (Jimmy Akingbola) is soon disappointed at being usurped as the favourite child by Mama's grandson Kobna. Meanwhile, Bagpipes (Bill Bailey) experiences the unexpected return of his panic attacks, prompting a health kick, while planned changes to the Eastbridge estate might not mean the best outcome for the community.

Idris Elba & Jimmy Akingbola interview

Idris Elba on making sure In The Long Run reflected racial realities.

Jimmy Akingbola interview

The In the Long Run actor on his rocketing career and the challenges he has faced along the way.

Kate and Koji serves up an odd couple for our times

Interviews with stars Brenda Blethyn and Jimmy Akingbola.

What a pedigree Kate & Koji appeared to have. Co-stars in Brenda Blethyn and Jimmy Akingbola, written by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton (Drop The Dead Donkey, Outnumbered), and a bonkers-but-might-work premise about an asylum-seeking African doctor setting up a temporary surgery in a seaside caff in exchange for square meals from the reactionary biddy of an owner.

My, it's grim, and what were you at all thinking, our sainted Auntie Vera? There are jokes about 70s TV detectives, oat milk, newfangled "podcasts". One running gag is that everyone looks to their phones after the microwave pings. It is amusing precisely once. At one stage Kate (Blethyn) reprimands Koji (Akingbola) for getting pedantic about apostrophes with "all right Doc, no need to go all Rees-Mogg on us!", as if one had to go to Eton (because it's posh, see!) in order to have an outside chance of grasping the basics of the English language: it's that kind of lowest-com-denom writing. Utterly unhelped - in fact, hog-tied at the knees - by a canned laughter track that gives it not just the content but the feel of something that could have surfaced a full 30 years ago. There's even a rival - snobby - interfering councillor in the shape of Barbara Flynn.

It's not unsalvageable. There's a (slight) warmth to be had in Kate's unthawing towards the 21st Century, her refreshing lack of the old prejudices. Some gags show spark, but you don't even get to enjoy the spark, already tensing at the collective awfulness of the wave of laughter that you know is bound to tsunami in.

Kate & Koji review

Kate & Koji is funny - and funny enough to make me snort with laughter. The script is well-honed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, who wrote Outnumbered. But what raises this show far above the ordinary are the performances by Brenda Blethyn and Jimmy Akingbola as the title characters.