Karl Johnson

TV preview: Mum, BBC2

The first series of Mum found saintly Cathy (Lesley Manville) mourning the death of her husband and dealing with her, erm, colourful family. The second series starts with a marginally lighter issue. She is about to turn sixty and also has her Essex family descending on her en masse.

10 top tens for Hot Fuzz's tenth

This year, after watching Hot Fuzz for the tenth time, and still picking up little details I'd never noticed before, I went down to the pub for a glass of celebratory cranberry juice. I thought Anglonerd magazine, too, should celebrate the brilliance of this film in a big way, so here is not just a top ten list, but ten top ten lists, highlighting the best one hundred things about Edgar Wright's comedy action flick. *Spoilers*

Mum is a new observational piece from Stefan Golaszewski who previously created fantastic Him and Her. The mum of the title is Cathy (Lesley Manville), a recently widowed fifty-nine year old who we follow over a year of her life. The opening episode takes place on the day of her husband's funeral in January and sees her meet her son's rather ditzy girlfriend Kelly (Lisa McGrillis) whose airhead nature is exposed early on when she decides to wear red to the funeral. As the episode goes on we meet the other colourful characters in Cathy's life including her good-natured brother Derek (Ross Boatman), his highly-strung girlfriend Pauline (Dorothy Atkinson) and her late husband's parents (Karl Johnson and Marlene Sidaway). The most intriguing character of the piece though is Michael (Peter Mullan), an old family friend who is quite clearly holding a torch for Cathy. Michael is painted as Cathy's only confidant in a houseful of oddities and their sweet-natured conversations are a good contrast for the laugh-out-loud moments found elsewhere in Mum. Anyone who enjoyed Him and Her will know how good an ear Golaszweski has for natural dialogue and if anything the conversations in Mum feel more organic than those in the creator's previous series. I think everyone will find something in this first episode in Mum that they identify with especially when the characters talk about what the post-funeral buffet will involve. Mum brilliantly combines its humour with moments of pathos such as the latter part of the episode when Cathy finally lets her grief get the best of her. By this point in the episode Cathy has already been painted as a sympathetic character by Golaszewski and the fact that we care about as much as we do is also a testament to the performance put in by Lesley Manville. Manville totally captures Cathy's feelings on the day of the funeral and is brilliant at reacting to the various characters that have come to her house. However it's the aforementioned breakdown that sees Manville at her best and I'm hoping that next year sees her win the BAFTA she lost out on this year. Great support is provided by Lisa McGrillis as Kelly and Dorothy Atkinson as Pauline the latter of whom utilises a number of great pompous facial expressions. But of the cast I was most impressed by Peter Mullan who is a revelation giving a rather subdued performance as the kindly Michael. Watching Mullan and Manville together on screen is a particular treat and their scenes together are some of Mum's best and that only continues as the series gets going. Mum is one of those series that I just can recommend enough and I urge people go and seek it out as it is really that good.