Sarah Parish

W1A review - the Way Ahead is behind and it's brilliant

The returning mockumentary send-up of the BBC is very funny at times, if a bit smug. Perhaps it should sharpen its daggers and look at Auntie's pay gap...

W1A series three preview

There are moments in W1A that are almost too agonising to watch. The circuitous meetings of the BBC's directionless yet ironically named Way Ahead group so accurately replicate the prevarications of real corporate life that you can feel the knuckle-gnawing frustration from your own sofa.

Like the BBC W1A series 3 is easier to admire than love

"How about a BBC News forecast app? Like the weather forecast but with emojis. Each day, it'll be, like, Italy: smiley face. Syria: droopy mouth. Russia: angry face." Unfold your Brompton bike because W1A (BBC Two) was back for a third series of self-reflexive BBC satire and management gobbledegook.

Those people who insisted a female-led Ghostbusters remake was disrespectful to the original might want to look away now. After having the time of their lives doing an am-dram Dirty Dancing last week, Lemon and McGuinness aim their proton accelerators at Ivan Reitman's high-spirited classic, roping in Robbie Williams, Sarah Parish and 'Allo 'Allo star Vicki Michelle to help spoof Zuul and the gang. It's short, at least.

Radio Times review

It's "Black" Christmas Eve at the discount supermarket Valco: as well as bargains being snapped up by hordes of feral shoppers, there are new and familiar faces in the sitcom that attracts top-quality comic actors, then doesn't do quite enough with them. Gavin (Jason Watkins) has become a Scrooge-like hard man, denying his staff a party and prowling around for vulnerable team members he can corral into working on Christmas Day. Will the return of Julie (Jane Horrocks), the tender guidance of rival store manager Cheryl (Sarah Parish) or the arrival of mysterious head-office enforcer Frank (Richard Wilson) lead to a softening of his spirit?

It's nearly Christmas at Valco and fruit-recognition training is in full swing, while a poisonous spider is on the loose. In the second of the double bill, the supermarket's staff celebrate its birthday in 1960s fancy dress as the series bows out. There are some real gems in the ensemble cast, most notably Jason Watkins and Sarah Parish playing out Gavin's bittersweet romance with rival supermarket manager Cheryl in the store's freezer. Trollied is from the Stella school of comedy: not always hilarious, but gently watchable.

This is the start of Trollied's fifth series. It's a sitcom set in a fictional supermarket called Valco which has the slogan "SERVES YOU RIGHT!"

I'd never watched it before - Sky1's comedy rarely tempts me - so I was pleasantly surprised to see so many famous faces in it, including Jason Watkins whom I'd last seen in the brilliant ITV drama about Christopher Jefferies. He's joined by Sarah Parrish, Stephen Tompkinson and another actor, playing the store security guard, whom I recognised but just couldn't place till it suddenly hit me: he was in Bread. That's a blast from the past!

The episodes opens with bad news: a new supermarket is opening next door and it's "one of them dead cheap Yugoslavian places" whose name translates as, "we're all gonna lose our jobs."

It annoyed me that the checkout staff are all simpletons or overweight, whilst the middle-class management are impeccably groomed and tailored, but I had to shrug off thoughts of exploitation of the workers and remind myself it's a comedy - although there weren't many reminders of its comic status with jokes such as, "Can you tell me where I can find eggs?". "Chickens," comes the reply.