Sarah Hadland

The Job Lot (ITV) is one of those comedies I want to make me bellylaugh because of the people in it but I'm not really getting beyond the odd wry smirk.

Despite boasting a great cast - Russell Tovey from Him & Her (and much besides), Miranda's Sarah Hadland and Adeel Akhtar from Utopia - squeezing amusement out of the daily grind of life in a job centre is proving an uphill struggle.

The problem partly stems from the feeling that the characters haven't got anywhere to go. Tovey's desk monkey Karl is the equivalent of Martin Freeman's Tim in The Office, both stuck in dead-end jobs and not quite sure how they got there, both niggled by the idea they're worth something better. But with Tim you could envision a life beyond; Karl ceases to exist the moment he steps outside the door.

It's that lack of credibility that makes The Job Lot just a journeyman old-school sitcom, cranking the odd easy laugh out of secret websites and unwipeable whiteboards - drawings of bottoms always crack a smile - but the lack of ambition makes it a candidate for early redundancy.

Sarah Hadland interview

Sarah Hadland, 42, is best known as Stevie in sitcom Miranda. She can now be seen as Trish in The Job Lot, a comedy set in a West Midlands job centre.

And I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with another new sitcom, The Job Lot, which came on straight after Vicious. It had the air of The Office about it, following the lives of those working at a job centre in the West Midlands. But it was nowhere near as good as Ricky Gervais' classic series.

The show was about work - or the lack of it - and the characters in the office and their relationships - or lack of them - and, though it started with the Morecambe & Wise song Bring Me Sunshine, it did anything but. It left me as disillusioned as the employers.

In fairness, the performers were likeable enough, such as Miranda's Sarah Hadland's turn as neurotic Trish, and Russell Tovey as Karl, the frazzled manager.

The one shining light in an otherwise average sitcom was Jo Enright, brilliantly irritating as Angela, an unsmiling jobsworth and borderline psychopath.

Sadly, two vital ingredients were missing from the half hour show - laughs and the plots, both of which are pretty important when it comes to making good TV. Add to that the annoying background music and I've got another reason not to tune in again.

Sean Pertwee guest stars this week as an army sergeant drumming up new recruits from among the jobseekers - and having a hot man in uniform in their midst gets the entire staff in a bit of a tizz.

Manager Trish (Sarah Hadland) is making gooey eyes at him, Karl (Russell Tovey) wants to be his new best friend, security guard Paul (Martin Marquez) is put out that he's no longer the manliest man there, and Angela is doing something suggestive with a breadstick.

In her head this is probably seductive but to everybody else it's just disturbing.

Comedian Jo Enright is wonderful again this week as office oddball Angela, and on the receiving end of her unhelpful behaviour tonight is the boss from C4's PhoneShop.

Actor Martin Trenaman plays an estate agent looking for new employment.

Sadly he doesn't want to work in mobile phone retail, but he does spend an awful lot of time on a landline.

The Job Lot is a second sitcom premiere from ITV, airing directly after Vicious. This is quite a different beast: an ensemble cast (featuring names such as Sarah Hadland, Russell Tovey and Jo Enright), filmed single-camera, focused around the employees of a West Midlands Job Centre.

The Job Lot is filmed in a style which will be reminiscent to most viewers of modern sitcoms (in particular, The Office), right down to the slight focus readjustments on closeups. This is a bit of an odd one, as the style feels at odds with the writing, which didn't feel as real as the environment we were being shown. The main failing of the opening episode though, was that it focused too heavily on background and not enough on laughs. I counted actually laughing only twice, and they were just the 'light expulsion of air' sort of chuckles rather than actual belly laughs. In its defence, one trapping that is doesn't fall into is demonising the unemployed and 'lower' classes in that familiar way that a lot of mainstream comedy tends towards.

I will give the next episode a go; it wasn't awful but I'm certainly yet to be impressed. I might just watch more for Hannah off Hollyoaks. I like Hannah off Hollyoaks.

Hard on the heels of ­Vicious's tasselled loafers and completing an ITV comedy double-bill is The Job Lot. 
Don't know about you but that title makes me think of 
The Rag Trade, a sitcom even older than '73. And listen to the theme music - Bring Me Sunshine, the song which Mike and Bernie Winters made their own (just checking you're ­paying attention; it was of course Cheech & Chong). But in fact The Job Lot has a contemporary look (so long as you don't think that jittery Office-esque camerawork is getting quite dated) and an apt setting given these times (a job ­centre).

In the finest ITV traditions, this show has plucked talent from successful comedies (­Sarah Hadland from Miranda, Russell Tovey from Him & Her) and tried to create a new winning team. It's a formula borrowed from football but it doesn't always work at Chelsea and Manchester City and it doesn't always work on telly. The Job Lot isn't bad, just a bit predictable. There's the neurotic boss, the punctilious tyrant, the sweet old bat, the chancer running his own business in work-time and the bright but demotivated lad who perks up when the mini-­skirted temp arrives­. Actually, reminding myself of the characters has made me think I should give this another look. I'd do the same for Vicious but in its case would require some '73-style inducement, such as a year's supply of Creamola Foam (raspberry flavour).

The Job Lot, set in a West Midlands Job Centre, was really rather loveable. Russell Tovey as a beleaguered dole-claim clerk, Sarah Hadland as his anxious boss, plus an ensemble cast featuring an anally retentive toxic pen-pusher (Jo Enright, one of Britain's best character actresses), the long-term professionally idle Sophie McShera (Downton Abbey) plus the glorious Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions and Utopia). Russell Tovey's delightful "stick your job up your arse" strop, followed a mere 10 minutes later by a complete volte-face genuinely made me gleeful. In fact, I could watch Sophie McShera argue with Russell Tovey about why she can't take any of the jobs on offer for the entire episode. Tovey: "Greggs, the bakery, 15 hours a week?" McShera: "I'm wheat-intolerant".

Though I didn't enjoy Vicious, I found that its companion piece The Job Lot had a lot to offer. Set in the West Midlands-based Brownhill Job Centre this focused on the staff and clients neither of whom particularly wanted to work.

Our hero of sorts is Karl (Russell Tovey) a young man who imagined he'd have a successful career after he got his art degree but has found himself working in a job he hates. He is constantly frustrated by trying to find work for people like Bryony (Sophie McShera) who blatantly don't want a job and just turn up so they can keep claiming benefits.

In this first episode Karl briefly quits the Job Centre only to return when he discovers that pretty temp Chloe (Emma Rigby) is due to start working there. However this new incentive is a short-lived one after he finds out that Chloe has a boyfriend and also that she'll be leaving after Danielle (Tamla Kari) returns from maternity leave early. Meanwhile manager Trish (Sarah Hadland) is irked by the return of Angela (Jo Enright) who took Trish to court after she fired her. It now appears as if Angela will be doing as little work as possible while Trish continues to head towards an inevitable breakdown.

While The Job Lot is far from perfect I found it to be well-observed with a couple of clever gags scattered throughout. In my daily life I've encountered people like Angela and Briony both of whom are bought to life perfectly by Enright and McShera. Meanwhile the programme also has a likeable lead in the form of Russell Tovey's Karl who gets through his day with the help of a drawer full of biscuits. Tovey is always an endearing screen presence and here his likeability is put to full use. I also thought Sarah Hadland was perfectly cast as the increasingly stressed Trish who is the perfect personification of the harassed boss.

Though The Job Lot does have some clunky moments, I found it to be a likeable sitcom with plenty to offer. Still I don't think it deserves its place on primetime television just yet and should've maybe been placed on ITV2 instead. I'm also not sure why it's been grouped with Vicious as the two have very little in common and will attract very different audiences.

The Job Lot got off to a very strong start.

Sarah Hadland stars as Trish, the manager of a West Midlands job centre, recently returned from stress-related sickness leave. Ostensibly sunny and positive - "turn the unemployed into the fun employed" is her motto - Trish struggles to maintain the facade in a work environment beset by resentment, hostility, despair, defeatism and bureaucracy. And that's before they open up to the public.

The show is essentially an ensemble piece - a uniformly excellent cast includes Russell Tovey, Jo Enright and Emma Rigby - but it is Hadland's understated, poignant portrayal of brittle optimism under unbearable stress that holds it all together. It is good to see Hadland, best known as Miranda Hart's sidekick Stevie in the former's eponymous sitcom, emerging from Hart's shadow as a fine comic actor in her own right.

The Job Lot is set in a busy West Midlands Job Centre and will focus on the relationships between the people that work there and the people that don't work there, or anywhere else for that matter.

This fly-on-the-wall comedy, set in a Birmingham employment centre, will take a little time to bed in, while we get to know the manager on the brink of a nervous breakdown (Sarah Hadland from Miranda) and the frustrated arts graduate on the dole counter (TV veteran Russell Tovey).

The obstreperous Angela (Jo Enright) was instantly recognisable. She's one of the awkward squad as only British public services can make 'em. Refusing to open the office until exactly 9am, handing out the wrong forms on purpose, and cutting hunks off a block of cheddar with a pair of office scissors: Angela was perfectly observed.