Lisa McGee

Boy trouble, parent trouble and the actual Troubles are all fodder for this promising new sitcom set in early 1990s Northern Ireland and based on the schooldays of creator Lisa McGee. Saoirse Monica Jackson stars as 16-year-old Erin, frustrated at every turn by the no-nonsense nuns, her schoolmates and family (Game of Thrones' Ian McElhinney as Granda is terrifying). The punchlines are rather sparsely spread, but the characters soon feel like old friends.

Derry Girls review

A female Inbetweeners - set during the Troubles.

TV review: Derry Girls, C4

In fact forget I ever mentioned trying to avoid mentioning Mrs Brown's Boys. Apart from the domestic inter-generational family banter there is little similarity here. It isn't even set in the same place. And there's another difference. Derry Girls is funny.

Derry Girls, episode 1 review

As much a black comedy about the Troubles as a teenage nostalgia fest.

Derry Girls preview

'Sometimes the toughest places to live are also the funniest'.

Tiernan's new C4 comedy has an Inbetweeners feel to it

It's the role Tommy Tiernan was born to play.

London Irish (Channel 4), a comedy about a bunch of young people from Northern Ireland living in the capital, kinda This Life for the 21st century (less posh, more rude, more regional) - probably cost about a 10th of what The Wrong Mans cost. It's set in a few rooms - the bedroom, the bar, that kind of thing - and you might not recognise anyone in it. But it's about eight times better. Because it's bold, and filthy, and a little bit anarchic, written with balls (by Lisa McGee). And it has some brilliant lines, like: "It looks like you were sexually assaulting my boyfriend's corpse" (she was). The Daily Mail hates it: that's good enough for me.

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.