Martin Freeman

Martin Freeman interview

The cuddly Bilbo and John Watson actor, 50, on squash, lefty politics, having a little faith and reserving the right to be difficult.

Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard interview

"Show me a person who's not been screamed at by their parents and I'll show you a unicorn."

Una Stubbs remembered by Martin Freeman

The actor recalls his Sherlock co-star, a doyenne of British TV whose youthful, no-nonsense energy and humour were irresistible, as shown in her role sitcoms such as Till Death Us Do Part.

Kurupting The Industry review

A bemused celebration of the sitcom.

Kurupting The Industry review

This documentary on the story behind the Bafta-winning show about pirate radio is shameless puffery - but is no poorer for it.

Revolutionary mundanity: The Office at 20

In this age of streaming services, from Netflix to Disney+, TV series are churned out on an industrial scale, with thousands of episodes in various genres at your fingertips. Therefore, the fact that the 20th birthday of one particular series is being remarked upon, let alone celebrated, is something of a miracle, highlighting the genius that is the UK version of The Office.

North London's angriest misunderstood father returned in an immensely welcome second series of Breeders (Sky One), the pitch-perfect observational comedy that has Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard united in an ongoing war against - well, it, might be their children one moment, the school the next, overposh or overaccomplished or just snotty rival parents, but mainly it's just against Life, and a little bit against ageing. It manages a rare piece of straddling, between being very sweary - goodness but young Master Freeman likes his plosives and fricatives - and, just when you think you've got its measure, suddenly subtly tender.

There are great little thumb-portraits of entire personalities. For instance, Paul (Freeman) is in therapy early on for anger issues, and the therapist asks: "You put 'strategies' in inverted commas there?" "I did, yes. I find most of this stuff belongs in inverted commas, to be honest." And, from just that, you've got entirely the man. Struggling with love for and frustration with children, struggling not to be his own father, and with the older Luke's troubled school problems, the reasons for which we will have to wait; above all struggling not to care about the fact nothing can be exactly as it was when Luke and Ava were young. The children are, unlike in Motherland, often given centre stage, and in turn the performances from them, and Freeman and Haggard, are in dreadful peril of raising the whole thing beyond comedy to, actually, rather fiercely fine drama.

Breeders, season two review

An angry parenting comedy somewhere between amusing and bemusing.