Robert Harley

Radio Times review

Darren Boyd's mildly irritating male midwife Matthew is back for a second stab at this gag-heavy and rather preposterous comedy. Here he has to deal with a father who has two women in labour at the same time (likely, huh?) and a silly subplot involving an altercation with the thuggish boyfriend of the colleague he fancies. There are some decent lines but a few gas-and-air duds you wouldn't expect from Green Wing writers Robert Harley and James Henry.

I was slightly hopeful going into The Delivery Man primarily as director Victoria Pile created Green Wing whilst writers Robert Harley and James Henry also worked on the classic Channel 4 sitcom. Unfortunately, The Delivery Man has none of the surreal wit or classic characters of Green Wing and instead feels like it's been lifted from the 1970s. The central premise of The Delivery Man sees another Green Wing veteran in Darren Boyd play Matthew, a newly qualified midwife attempting to navigate his way through a female-dominated environment. I think I would've had more time for The Delivery Man if Matthew had proved his female colleagues wrong by proving himself to be a valuable member of the team and changing their expectations of him. But instead he was presented as a bumbling fool who was constantly lying to his patients, their families and the rest of the hospital staff whilst struggling with the simplest of tasks. Whilst watching The Delivery Man I kept wondering what would've happened if their was a sitcom about a bumbling woman entering a male-dominated environment and doing a really bad job. I personally think there would be a general outcry but nobody appeared to bat an eyelid when that was the central joke of the piece. A potential romance between Matthew and fellow midwife Lisa (Aisling Bea) already has little interest whilst the supporting characters all feel a little one-dimensional. This is a shame when the cast includes such heavyweights as Alex MacQueen and Fay Ripley, the latter of whom at least tried her best as well-meaning senior midwife Caitlin. The biggest problem though was that The Delivery Man didn't provoke a sufficient amount of laughter from yours truly. In fact the only real laugh I had was during a joke about Claire's Accessories whilst a scene involving a birthing pool also raised a brief titter. Ultimately I was disappointed with a programme that felt like it had been severely watered down by ITV who seem to favour the sort of broad humour which The Delivery Man had in droves.

Radio Times review

"I have had the same training as all the women," protests Darren Boyd's male midwife Matthew, a bloke in a very female-centred environment. In Green Wing writers Robert Harley and James Henry's old-fashioned comedy he has to cope with quite a lot of sexism, but doesn't help himself by being quite an irritant, which detracts a little from a sitcom packed with decent lines and excellent supporting stars (Fay Ripley and Aisling Bea among them).

There is also little sense of Matthew's back story - apart from the fact he used to be a policeman - although the signs are that we will be seeing a lot more of Paddy McGuinness as his even more annoying (and slightly unhinged) former colleague and flatmate.