Julie Balloo

Anyone familiar with the work of Jenny Eclair will recognise her hand in this madcap, slightly ramshackle new comedy. Eclair co-wrote the story with Julie Balloo about washed-up, middle-aged, divorced Fleet Street journalist Ros, who has ended up living in her childhood village of Norton Tripton.

The only job she can get is working for her monstrous ex's sister, who runs the local tourist website - but is patently not happy doing stories about flower displays. Eclair has great fun portraying Ros's angry desperation at how her life has detoured into a cul-de-sac as her ex-husband's career goes stratospheric, while Mark Heap brings his trademark oddball schtick to the role of her sidekick.

It's a riotous farce that reminded me of the stories of Tom Sharpe in its eccentric characters and extreme situations.

David Crawford, Radio Times, 12th March 2013

I'm rather puzzled by Jenny Eclair's and Julie Balloo's series, which is rather stronger on varicose veins of the labia and the dangers of high blood pressure, than it is on jokes. I'd never have thought of Eclair as the new Miriam Stoppard.

Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, 27th January 1996