Kerr Logan

This was comedy with the broadest of brushstrokes, no doubt annoying Irish people everywhere with its portrayal of expats (current pats, surely?) who seem to spend 90% of their time in the pub.

Sadly, the broadness killed off many of the laughs and if nothing in particular was working, writer Lisa McGee just resorted to packing in as much swearing as she could in a vain hope that people find the repetitive use of a certain four letter c-word hilarious. She's so wrong on that score.

Half way through I realised that this was a sitcom with a basic family set-up. Peter Campion's character Packy was the best thing in it, the most sensible of the quartet of main characters, and essentially the leader and father figure. But the others were so broadly drawn that I just didn't care about them. Niamh (Kat Reagen) was up for drugs and sex and that was about it, while Bronagh (Sinead Keenan) was so bad-tempered and foul-mouthed across the entire half-hour that you wondered why anyone in their right mind would want to spend any time with her at all.

Worse than that was Conor (Kerr Logan), who was obviously there as the silly Father Dougal comedy relief. But Father Dougal worked because he was a likeable, childlike buffoon, and the whole Father Ted world was an exaggerated fantasy land anyway. But a character like that doesn't really work in a realistic show set in a genuine part of London, so instead of innocence and silliness, he unfortunately came across as borderline care in the community.

I know several Irish people here in London, and not one of them is anything like the hard-drinking, anti-English, 'big ticko Paddy' stereotypes that were on offer here. If I can chuck a few stereotypes in myself, all that was missing were some dodgy builders and that annoying bunch of brothers playing their guitars in that sausage advert.

It's a big fail for Channel 4 - it's having a tough time of it at the moment and laugh-free dross like this isn't going to help.

TV Jam, 25th September 2013

Over on Channel 4, rather later after the watershed for reasons that became quickly obvious, London Irish (***) started another six-week residency. The sitcom, about four Northern Irish twentysomethings living in the UK capital, is created and written by Derryite Lisa McGee. The foursome are sister and brother Bronagh (Sinead Keenan) and Conor (Kerr Logan), who share a flat with Packy (Peter Campion) and Niamh (Kat Reagan). Packy is a slacker, Niamh is a nympho, and has a jailbird boyfriend who bores her but whom she keeps in contact with "for a ride", while Bronagh has range of fruity insults for her dim brother, including "dickswab" and "fucktard".

They are part of a generation mercifully untouched by terrorism, so instead of brooding about the stereotypes of politics, religion and history, they can get on with living up to the, er, stereotypes of drinking too much, having lots of sex and and swearing like navvies. I think there's a joke in there somewhere, but McGee doesn't upend the tired tropes to make them funny.

Last night's story concerned Packy bumping into Ryan (Ciaran Nolan) from back home, who lost his hand while covering a shift in a garage for him, when he was shot in a hold-up. Packy organises a charity quiz - "like an exam in a pub" - at the foursome's local to raise funds for Ryan's new robotic hand. Cue lots of rather weak jokes about not him being able to clap or going to a fancy-dress party as Captain Hook - Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's one-legged actor auditioning for Tarzan it was most definitely not.

The opener was a bit frantic and unfocused, and the actors are all a little too shouty - always a bad sign in a comedy - and, despite some smart lines and the welcome presence of Ardal O'Hanlon as Bronagh and Conor's Da back home, it will have to improve swiftly to gain a dedicated following.

Veronica Lee, The Arts Desk, 24th September 2013