Phoebe Abbott

More neatly observed, finely tuned comedies by Marcella Evaristi about modern dilemmas of shared parenting, starring Sarah Alexander as Mimi, the thrice-married mum, with Mark Bonnar as Dad (replacing David Tennant, who played him in the first series last year). Their two children are Tom (he'll be 11 now) and teenage Lucy, played by Finlay Christie and Phoebe Abbott (and very well too) about to get her mother's full attention in this first of six episodes. Marilyn Imrie directs, for independents Absolutely Productions. And there's more good news, in that there are six episodes, rather than the four of the first series. Make the most of them because big budget cuts seem to be digging into the schedule in ways that limit new programmes. Any day now across the whole schedule radio is repeating many more programmes than it once did. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, one person's repeat being another person's first hearing. But as Radio 4, in particular, produces more new programmes across a greater variety of genres than other networks, it is bound to restrict innovation and is already affecting how digital Radio 4 can use more recent programmes.

If though, you are one of those people who want to hear more about north London, or indeed the talented David Tennant, who pops up like a specially resilient strain of ground elder in every part of our cultural experience these days, then The Gobetweenies is for you. It features the kind of hands-on, amicably divorced parents who discuss Duchamp's urinals with their children over tea. Mimi, played by Sarah Alexander, is "a smart award-winning children's fiction writer" intent on 24/7 education. As one of her children says, "anything you ever want to talk about it's bingo, she's off to get a book." David Tennant as Joe frets satirically about the agony of children having to shuttle between two sets of parents, and decides to move back in. Phoebe Abbott, who sounds uncannily like Pip in The Archers, plays an irritating child very convincingly. Anyone who rues the day that "parent" became a verb will hate this, but to the rest of us it's all very recognisable. It's occasionally funny. Whether that makes it satire is another matter.