Lisa Millett

TV review, Warren, BBC One

If you watch the right programmes - Derry Girls, Catastrophe - you could easily argue that we are going through a golden age of sitcom at the moment. On the other hand if you watch Warren, starring Martin Clunes as the perma-grumpy titular driving instructor, you might feel that the sitcom is fatally wounded.

Warren, review: laughs are in short supply

This new comedy about a beleaguered driving instructor who moves up north lacked wit, empathy, and heart.

The televisual equivalent of hormone replacement therapy ends this week with one last, daffy spin around the block for the women-only taxi firm.

No actual medical research has been carried out, but having your eyeballs assaulted by this unrelenting, sea of pink for 60 minutes leaves you with the weird compulsion to crack open a bottle of sparkling rose and the feeling that youve gone up at least one cup size. And that goes for any men watching too. (Are there any men watching?)

In the final instalment, Jackie and Elaine (Jo Joyner and Lisa Millett) are fighting off claims that Candy Cabs is sexist. (Thats the firm, not the entire series, in case you were wondering). Surely not! How can an office where the women strip off to their undies every week for their weekly Fat Club weigh-ins and the men are either totty or Neanderthals possibly be considered sexist?

The firms future depends on a tense court hearing although they really missed a trick in not getting Elle from Legally Blonde to represent them.

Fans will be pleased to know that it ends with the passenger door left wide open for a possible follow-up.

The road to success is pitted with potholes for the bosses of all-female taxi firm Candy Cabs.

In this new three part series, 'the Candies' must deal with their own chaotic private lives if they are to survive in business, plus opposition from rival companies in the seaside resort of South Hadley. Led by Jackie and Elaine (EastEnders' Jo Joyner and comedy star Lisa Millett) it's not long before personal obstacles interfere with their professional dreams.

A poor showing at the launch party leaves the girls worried then they discover that their drivers need to pass 'the Knowledge' to keep working. Can Candy Cabs survive the bumpy ride? A superb cast includes Denis Lawson, Claire Sweeney and Ricky Whittle.

An ensemble comedy-drama about plucky northern women? It's a crazy idea but it might just work.

This breezy new bit of fun set around a Women's-Only taxi company is very much in the same vein as Fat Friends and Cutting It with a dash of Carry On Cabby chucked in for good luck.

And as you'd expect, those taxis - a lovely fleet of hot-pink Citroen Berlingos - take a back seat to the even hotter relationship dramas which are the airport runs of shows like this.

In this opening episode alone we have a funeral, a broken marriage, several panic attacks and some serious flirting.

Candy Cabs' trump card is Joy Joyner with the same hair she has as Tanya in EastEnders but a decent enough accent, that only occasionally seems to get lost somewhere in the services on the way up the M6. And her new love interest is another ex-Eastender, Paul Nicholls playing a council official. As Jackie O'Sullivan, Joyner's the lynch pin of the operation, as she and her hyper-ventilating partner Elaine (Lisa Millett) decide to carry on with the business when their best friend dies just before the big launch.

The script, by Hollyoaks writers Johanne McAndrew and Elliot Hope, ticks over on a mixture of wit, sparkle and memorable one-liners while the cast also boasts Claire Sweeney, Paul Kaye - in leopard-skin speedos - Melanie Hill and Jodie "I'd Do Anything" Prenger who gets to sing the theme tune too.

The BBC has made only three episodes so far, but we reckon there's plenty more mileage to be got out of this.

Candy Cabs: Playing the lead with Jo Joyner

When the scripts for Candy Cabs landed on my doormat - well, pinged in my inbox - I read them in one go, laughed, cried, read them again to make sure I wasn't dreaming, then said out loud to myself - I have to play this part!

Candy Cabs: BBC Comedy Drama

Jo Joyner, Lisa Millett and Paul Nicholls star in Candy Cabs, a three-part BBC comedy about an all-female cab firm and due to start on Tuesday 5 April 2011.

This is the latest series from Craig Cash and Phil Mealey, who wrote BBC2's quietly brilliant Early Doors. Cash also co-wrote (and played Dave in) The Royle Family, so there's pedigree here. You'd expect wry Mancunian wit and warm character comedy - and that's exactly what you get.

The story centres on Steve Coogan as Bing, a lovable but hopeless chancer given to joking his way out of trouble. He leads not so much a hand-to-mouth existence as hand-to-bookies, and so spends much of the time in the doghouse with girlfriend Bernadette (beautifully played by Lisa Millett). There's quality support from Bernard Hill as Bing's dad, whose idea of babysitting is to wake his grandson up for an evening of tall stories about how he gave Hitler a Chinese burn. And Cash and Mealey turn up as bin-men. It's gently amusing, with a loving attention to detail, but don't expect belly laughs - it's classed as a comedy drama.