Peter Mullan

Mum, Series 3 finale, BBC Two review

Tears of laughter and sadness.

The magnificent final series ends exactly as any fan would like, with relief and new tenderness in the aftermath of Cathy (Lesley Manville) and Michael (Peter Mullan) going public with their love. The last shot is a peach, and there are tiny payoffs in every scene as the show's principle of not vocalising its emotions is relaxed by just the right amount. In the middle, though, is one heart-stopping moment of sadness and rage to remind us that all this sunny kookiness is underscored by grief. Exquisite.

You couldn't really get much less dramatic than the essential smallness of Mum, in which, for the six-piece final series, the widowed Lesley Manville and her own batch (son, girlfriend, inept brother Derek, brother's dreadful snob girlfriend, love interest Michael, dead hubby's parents) have decamped to a mansion. Pauline, brother's dreadful snob GF, has paid for all via a divorce settlement to celebrate Derek's birthday in a "posh" rented mansion full of towels folded into swans.

Tender, foul, awkward, human, never less than hugely funny, this has been one of the delights in my job. To see the glee of an ensemble piece - as well as Manville, of course, and Peter Mullan as shy Michael - in this last incarnation. Creator Stefan Golaszewski has said Mum has probably run its course, and he's most likely right, but what an absence it will bring. The depth of talent was unveiled, and it was wholly right to condense this last series into one claustrophobic week; a week in which Pauline essentially admitted she was a bad person, and we remembered the very smallness of the nigglings that haunt our lives if they're allowed to.

The entire cast shone. Karl Johnson's grandpa Reg (his outrage at coming across a shampoo labelled "not tested on animals" was a particular joy); Sam Swainsbury as son Jason played a richly subtle balance of thick, kind and misguidedly worldly.

Mum works as drama just as much as comedy. The many moments when Jason and Michael are left alone in a room, a house, a garden, are utterly fraught: at every one of Michael's half-gambits at conversation, every silently insolent shrug from Jason, you will cringe and gently perspire at memories of your own awkwardnesses (taking slightly too long to wash a mug, or slightly too short a time to answer with a monosyllable).

Mum, Cathy, finally snaps, in her own, nice way. Rude to nobody, she simply saunters, champagne in its bucket and Michael's hand in hers, towards a long lovely lawn, her body language yelling a cheerful "fuck you all".

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