Sarah Hadland

Preview: Comedy Playhouse, Stop/Start, BBC1

Stop/Start is the sort of sitcom which would prompt the Daily Mail/Express to say "At last, a BBC sitcom that is actually funny." Yes, Stop/Start is pretty broad and pretty old fashioned but it is also genuinely funny, thanks to great performances from a quality cast and a script which mostly stays on the acceptable side of politically incorrect old hat.

Stop / Start review

Jack Docherty's wedded radio sitcom makes a blissful (ish) leap onto the small screen.

Channel 4's commitment to cutting edge comedy continued with this satirical take on the campaign leading up to May's general election. Writers Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton employed the same technique they did during Drop the Dead Donkey and wrote some of the more topical jokes on the day that the episodes were filmed. This gave Ballot Monkeys a very relevant edge and what's more it was very funny to boot with special mention going to Ben Miller's frustrated Lib Dem supporter and Sarah Hadland's awful UKip member. Ultimately Ballot Monkeys wasn't just one of the funniest sitcoms of the year it was also one of the most inventive.

A sitcom that I've stuck with sporadically since its inception is The Job Lot, which returned for its third series this week. The Job Lot certainly had a shaky start when it debuted back in 2013 primarily due to it being coupled with the woeful Vicious on prime time ITV. However it was rehabilitated last year thanks to a refreshed look, an anarchic vibe and a new channel in ITV2. This first episode was built around a rather traditional gag in which Karl (Russell Tovey) thought girlfriend Natalie (Laura Aikman) was pregnant even though it was Trish (Sarah Hadland) who actually suspected she might be having a baby. Although the misheard rumour is quite a well-worn comic trope I felt the writing team more than pulled it off thanks to the way in which each gag was timed. The sporadic use of the sociopathic Angela (Jo Enwright) also helped to break up the main plot with the job centre's most picky employee later becoming involved in Trish's story. Apart from the snappy writing, what makes The Job Lot work so well is the cast and in particular the three leading players. As Karl, Russell Tovey exceeds at playing the beleaguered everyman who feels that he should be in a better job despite making no attempts to leave his current employment. Meanwhile Sarah Hadland is fantastic as the hyper Trish who stumbles from one crisis to the next with this series seemingly seeing her want to have a baby. But for me The Job Lot has always been about Angela, a brilliant comic creation whose actions, though often cruel, feel oddly believable. Despite its appearance on one of the younger channels I feel that The Job Lot is a traditional sitcom masquerading as something a lot edgier. Whilst this isn't a bad thing I feel nothing about the episode was particularly memorable and most of the gags were pretty easy to guess. Thankfully this is a series with a fantastic cast and therefore, if it continues to find an audience, I can definitely see The Job Lot returning for another series.

Miranda Hart is considering a Miranda film

Hart's co-star Sarah Hadland reveals that the Miranda creator is "thinking about" a future movie.

With three days to go before polling day, we can presumably expect events in the election battle bus sitcom to grow ever more frenetic. But in a controlled way, because Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin perfected the knack of dropping topical material into the mix at the last moment back in their days writing Drop The Dead Donkey; while the likes of Hugh Dennis, Ben Miller and Sarah Hadland can be relied on not to fluff their lines. Continues and concludes tomorrow and Wednesday.

Sarah Hadland interview

If it gets people talking and interested in politics that would be great. Satire is a tremendous way of getting people engaged with politics.

In an election where the Tories, to use Lynton Crosby's terminology, keep dropping dead cats on to the table, here come the creators of Drop The Dead Donkey. As they did with their 1990s news-com, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin have written scripts with gaps, to be filled at the last minute with oven-hot satire. The action flips between various shades of panic on board the Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Ukip battle buses. A strong cast is led by Ben Miller, Sarah Hadland and the lord high chancellor of topical zingers, Hugh Dennis.

This election satire promises to be so topical, it will only be written in the hours before it's broadcast.

Wherever they aim their comedy sights, it's certainly bound to liven up what's been a distinctly laugh-free election campaign.

What we do know is the show will be written by those clever bods Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, who brought us Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered. A ringing endorsement if ever there was one.

And it will star the likes of Hugh Dennis, Trevor Cooper, Sarah Hadland, Ben Miller and Hattie Morahan. So far, so good.

The trailer features the cast as confused, gormless politicians, all effectively scratching their heads and wondering what to say. So it's all looking rather authentic.

The five half-hour episodes, broadcast in the run up to the May 7 election, will intercut between the campaign buses of the four main parties - Conservative, Labour, Liberal ­Democrats and UKIP, who don't really need to be satirised.

On each bus, cameras follow the staff including analysts, interns, IT geeks, social media monitors, empathy consultants (seriously?) and even bus drivers as they deal with the latest crisis or drama. A crisis or drama that we will have only just heard about in real life.

Radio Times review

Bored and unamused by the election? Well, this new comedy from Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered creators Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin may cheer you up. It takes you onto the battle buses of the Tories, Labour, Ukip and Lib Dems (the Greens appear to have been snubbed), with key scenes written and performed close to transmission. The idea is to insert highly topical material at the very last minute, something which worked so stunningly in Drop the Dead Donkey.

And with great performers like Ben Miller, Hattie Morahan and Sarah Hadland to call on and a rich collection of characters including press officers, empathy consultants, special advisers (aka "spads"), IT wizards, social media monitors, political analysts, interns and of course bus drivers, chances are this may well get your vote.