Rebekah Staton

Radio Times review

Jo Brand applies her mordant wit to the fraught world of child protection as she typecasts herself as "the fat, bad-tempered one", Rose, in an office of social workers. She and her fellow socials, Al (Alan Davies) and Nitin (Romesh Ranganathan), are a fairly disarrayed bunch, as likely to be arguing over who should answer the phones as taking kids into care - Rose herself is a harassed single mum, trying desperately to arrange childcare before she leaves for work in the morning.

It all plays disturbingly naturally, with excellent support from Kevin Eldon, Pulling's Rebekah Staton and Brand's Getting On co-star Ricky Grover. The dark humour fizzes along - with a delicious kick at the end.

Caitlin Moran, journalist and best-selling author of How To Be A Woman, joins forces with her sister Caz for this raucous comedy pilot based on their unconventional childhood in Wolverhampton. The mighty Rebekah Staton is the mum of the piece, waywardly presiding over a house raging with teenage hormones, pop-culture references and a clutch of kids glorying in names such as Germaine, Aretha and Yoko. No wonder the neighbours look at them a bit funny...

Isy Suttie (Peep Show's Dobby) kicks off tonight's brace of romantic comedies as Miss Wright, a café waitress whose amorous fantasies break out into song whenever a certain ticket collector puffs into view. In Aphrodite Fry, Sarah Solemani (Him & Her) stars as a mural artist for whom a brusque one-night stand leads her to contemplate the shortcomings and goings of life. They make a sharp and funny pair, with splendid support turns from Rebekah Staton and Rosamund Hanson.

It's a pleasure to see talented writers and performers given their head in this Sky short film strand. The format offers freedom but demands concision and invention too - tonight's offerings from Isy Suttie and Sarah Solemani exploit the opportunity gleefully.

First up is Suttie, starring as dopey, charming dreamer Bella - working in the café of a tiny train station, challenging the romantic pragmatism of her boss, friend and rival Jenny (Rebekah Staton) and occasionally, bursting into song. As a cheerful musing on small towns and crap jobs, it packs plenty into its 25 minutes.

Then at 9.30pm there's Sarah Solemani's Aphrodite Fry. Stung by the poor sexual etiquette of a one-night stand, Aphrodite sets out to prove that women can 'cum and go' too. For this purpose, she selects an apparently charmless partner (Alex Price's Bobby, a man whose dreams are to 'make lots of money and meet Mike Tindall'). But inevitably, she discovers frailty and humanity within this unpromising raw material.

Both films are slight and not without their flaws and self-indulgences, but they overflow with charm too.

The penultimate slice of this patchy comedy-drama about a quartet of men in their mid-thirties who meet for a weekly booze-up in Stockport. Hodge (Lee Boardman) and his wife Kath (Rebekah Staton) head off for a romantic weekend away that turns out to be anything but. On-off girlfriend Colleen's frisky new ways throw neurotic Daz (Stephen Walters) into a crisis but divorcé Beggsy (Will Ash) fares rather better in the romance stakes as he finally begins to enjoy the spoils of single life. Keith Allen guest stars.

Four episodes in, and the Stockport-set comedy is still struggling to catch fire - but there are enough flickering signs of life to merit a look. Hodge (Lee Boardman) gets the jitters when his wife Kath (Rebekah Staton) suggests starting a family, not helped when his plumbing results in disaster at Daz's (Stephen Walters) house. Meanwhile, Beggsy (Will Ash) isn't happy about being used as bait for Colleen's (Naomi Bentley) peculiar flatmate Bev (Isy Suttie); and an old schoolmate (Paul Nicholls) of Glyn's attempts to renew their acquaintance.

The thirtysomething comedy-drama has been a holy grail for ITV ever since Cold Feet shuffled off-screen almost a decade ago. The channel's latest foray into the genre follows a quartet of mismatched but tightly knit Stockport chums enjoying a farcically disjointed weekly get-together while the long-suffering women in their lives show them how it should be done. It's pretty dated in its attitudes (boys go to the football then the pub, girls go on the razzle in a wine bar), and a certain goofy charm can't compensate for an absence of either many laughs or much drama. This in spite of spirited efforts from a cast including Ricky Tomlinson, Rebekah Staton and Craig Parkinson. Inoffensive but equally inconsequential.

The predictable parts of Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni's laddish new comedy drama about four thirtysomething friends from Stockport (football, drinking, women trouble) are buoyed by a lively script with some good one-liners. The gang comprises would-be alpha male Hodge (Lee Boardman), nerdy underdog Glyn (Craig Parkinson), chirpy divorcee Beggsy (William Ash) and pessimistic Daz (Stephen Walters). In tonight's opening episode Hodge narrowly avoids wife Kath's (Rebekah Staton) fury after botching their wedding anniversary plans.

Darren Boyd & Rebekah Staton: Spy's talented comedy duo

As the MI5 comedy ends its series with a Christmas special, we meet the stars behind the show's screen romance.

The stringently funny comedy ends its second series with an episode that, in proper Christmas-special tradition, is twice the usual length and 40 per cent sillier. Ten-year-old Marcus (the freakishly good Jude Wright) auditions fellow pupils for a seasonal musical, with customary ruthlessness: "There are prisoners in Guantánamo being waterboarded who sound better than you..." Even his dad Tim fails to win a part, despite Darren Boyd unleashing a stunning singing voice.

When MI5 agent Tim's office affair with Caitlin (Rebekah Staton) is discovered, there are guns drawn and truths told. Back at school, a talent shortage on the big night means desperate time-filling, à la gourmet night at Fawlty Towers.