Jimmy McGovern

The Full Monty review

As a general overview, I won't delve into spoilers, but I'd definitely say it might not be what you think it is, and this for more than for the better.

Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, the creators of The Royle Family, take a lengthy look at just why their kitchen-sink comedy struck a chord. As several contributors suggest, it succeeded because it was observant, naturalistic and, as the screenwriter Jimmy McGovern (of Cracker) has it, "brilliant art".

Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe took time off from spewing cheery vitriol across the television schedules to interview writers about the craft of writing.

These were clearly writers that Brooker admired, so his interview technique was disconcertingly sympathetic. The end result was a masterclass from such luminaries as Russell T Davies, Paul Abbott, Tony Jordan and Graham Linehan. All of whom spoke wittily and winningly about the combination of prevarication, panic and perspiration that produces a television script.

Ironically, the most pertinent point of a fascinating 50 minutes was made by a writer who wasn't even present. Abbott quoted Jimmy McGovern on the ever prickly problem of presenting exposition in dialogue: 'I would rather be confused for ten minutes than bored for five seconds.'

The Times Review

It is cleverer than it seems and, while the easy criticism of comedy dramas is that they are neither one thing nor the other, nor, you could say, is life. This squirrel is not charmed yet but will keep watching, not least because Sunshine, like a comical version of Jimmy McGovern's The Street, deals with something approximating life as it is lived beyond the M25.