Lorraine Ashbourne

Although every single episode in this series is completely different, somehow Messrs Pemberton and Shearsmith manage to score one bullseye after another. In tonight's episode, a stressed-out daughter (Claire Skinner) invites her mother (Elsie Kelly) over to celebrate her 79th birthday party. The other guests are an alcoholic sister (Lorraine Ashbourne) and her appalling husband (Reece Shearsmith), and it degenerates into the birthday party from hell. And while the inferno is raging all around her, Granny sits there smiling, endlessly reciting the joke on her birthday card or playing games on her granddaughter's iPad. Imagine a more twisted version of Abigail's Party.