Kerry Godliman

Video: Kerry Godliman: 'Isn't friendship wonderful'

Being mates these days demands endless admin. Who has time for a decent chat? Still, you can say so much with an aubergine emoji. Kerry Godliman weighs up the different expectations of male and female friendships in the modern world.

Kerry Godliman interview

'Whether I'm happy where I live is the 64 million dollar question'.

Comedians on meeting their hecklers

Sarah Kendall, Mark Watson, Alexei Sayle and other standups recall what happened when they came face to face with their toughest critics after a show.

Review: Jack Dee's Referendum Helpdesk, BBC2

Nobody seems to have told the person that did the opening credits for this comedy version of Question Time that it is about the EU. Instead subject titles such as "relationships" and "money"Romesh Ranganathan rolled past as if our host, serial cynic Jack Dee, was any old agony aunt.

Opinion: mainstream v alternative - is the gap closing?

We live in interesting times for comedy. I never thought I'd see Sara Pascoe on The Graham Norton Show. Maybe the gap is closing between what we describe as alternative and what we describe as mainstream. Maybe one of the legacies of Comedy Vehicle is that it did attract comedy fans to more cerebral notions of the nature of comedy. Sadly not enough for BBC2's beancounters.

C4 Comedy Gala, review

Rattling through a conveyor belt of more than twenty comedians, this marathon event had one-liners flying so thick and fast it started to become exhausting, says Bruce Dessau.

The routines that inspired comedians

Comedians reveal how they got turned on to stand-up.

Stop/Start was written and stars Jack Docherty who I most remember from his Channel Five chat show but who has recently been very active on radio. In fact Stop/Start is based on Doherty's successful Radio 4 sitcom with cast members Kerry Godliman and John Thomson also accompanying the writer for this small screen adaptation. Joining their number are Sarah Hadland, Nigel Havers and Laura Aikman who take part in what can best be described as rather an old-fashioned relationship comedy. The central couple of the piece are Rob and Cathy (Doherty and Godliman) who are about to celebrate an anniversary with a party where he has to give a speech. At the same time Rob's old work colleague Georgy (Aikman) moves across the road with her much older husband David (Havers) with the pair quickly being invited to the anniversary party. The third couple Evan and Fiona (Hadland and Thomson) are friends of Rob and Cathy's who are basically at each other's throats primarily arguing about yoghurt. The narrative twist that Stop/Start provides is that each of the six characters stops the action to talk directly to the audience often letting us in on how they're feeling during a certain moment. Despite this narrative device feeling a bit gimmicky at times it does provide some good laughs with Docherty's script containing a lot of clever observational humour. Additionally Rob and Cathy felt like a real couple to me and their problems with the monotony of a long marriage rose above the cliché of other romantic comedies. I also warmed to David and Georgy's story too thanks to a scene at the anniversary party where it was established why the couple were together. The one couple who were ill-served by the script were Evan and Fiona whose arguments felt too contrived to the extent that they didn't feel like fully-realised characters. That being said all six cast members gave it their best with Godliman particularly excelling in the role of the put-upon Cathy. Furthermore I didn't think the laughter track added anything and the use of The Ting Tings' 'Shut Up and Let Me Go' made the piece feel dated from the get-go. But that being said, of the three Comedy Playhouse pilots, Stop/Start is the one that I feel could easily get a full series due to its great ensemble cast and interesting central premise.

Preview: Comedy Playhouse, Stop/Start, BBC1

Stop/Start is the sort of sitcom which would prompt the Daily Mail/Express to say "At last, a BBC sitcom that is actually funny." Yes, Stop/Start is pretty broad and pretty old fashioned but it is also genuinely funny, thanks to great performances from a quality cast and a script which mostly stays on the acceptable side of politically incorrect old hat.