Sharon Horgan

Preview - Catastrophe

The delicious marital/domestic train wreck comedy penned by Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney continues as the couple get to put to one side their own dysfunctionality and infidelities for an evening at dinner with estranged couple Chris and Fran.

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TV shows about modern parenthood are everywhere at the moment. But while you've got to hope that BBC One's chilling maternity leave thriller The Replacement isn't a story most mums can relate to, the possible psychopaths in Channel 4's Catastrophe are a little more recognisable: nasty little playground biters.

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TV Review: Catastrophe, Series 3 Episode 2

Anyway, there's lots going on in this week's episode but the nicest aspect is the extremely watchable chemistry between Sharon and Rob.

Catastrophe, series 3, episode 2 review

This show is at its best when it is skewering real-life situations with cynical, on-the-money lines. The subtle, blink-and-you'll-miss-them moments are the most effective. Car crash speeches are a comedy staple, and, sure, all very funny, but Catastrophe doesn't need to lower itself to such sitcom tropes. It's just doesn't need them.

Catastrophe remains the funniest programme on television, despite its success. Horgan and Delaney might justifiably have grown lazy: they haven't. Series three kicked off with the usual scatology from Sharon Horgan - it's never a programme I would recommend to Irish nuns, though I don't know that very many - mostly revolving around knicker-sweat. Hubby Rob Delaney, the forsworn teetotaller, is back on the booze, which is immensely promising. Mostly it promises an accident waiting to happen - just not a very interesting accident. Two milk-floats colliding. All you're left with is the smell of spilt milk, going off.

The genius lies in the creation of a couple who can kick seven leathers out of each other and achieve impossibly stupid circumstances, but remain clever enough to know it is, still, and will always be, clever them against the world.

Catastrophe review

Catastrophe has evolved into the most realistic comedy on TV. At the same time, it is also the most inventively sexual and foul-mouthed.

Catastrophe starts its third season where the last one ended: with a whiff of unfaithfulness. On Sharon's part, with that little rock star, half her age, but she was so drunk she doesn't remember what exactly happened. Now she's feeling guilty ...

Hey, good news, she didn't cheat! Unless kissing him - OK, and holding his penis, but just holding, nothing more - counts as cheating. "I should have known; I gave my knickers a good sniff the next day, and they just smelled like, you know, normal bad," she tells Rob, reassuringly, at A&E, because their son fell off a chair and cut his head open while they were arguing.

The brilliant thing about Sharon and Rob (Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney) is that they're almost certainly going to be all right. It'll take a while - two or three months he reckons - but he'll learn to forgive her. It's the brilliant thing about Catastrophe too that, under a pile of knickers and all the filth, it is actually very sweet. Romantic, even. That and the fact that it is hilarious; the filth is top notch, glorious filth.

So many choice moments and lines: the browser history snooping, which found nipple hair electrolysis and fat Johnny Depps; the lame attempt to blame the unfaithfulness on Brexit, and Trump. ("Fuck you for a second, OK? Fuck your guilt or whatever"); and "Do I want to break up with you? What are we, 14?" No Rob, but her new boyfriend is (nearly) ...

Actually my favourite moment of all belongs to Ashley Jensen and her character, Fran. Sharon's on the phone to her, seeking advice and comfort from an old pal. "I have to go because my life coach has just arrived," says Fran. She hangs up, reaches for the remote control, and puts on Loose Women, which has Katie Price talking about drinking. Fran lifts a left cheek from the sofa and lets out a little fart, while making an "I'm-farting" face. Lovely.

Catastrophe shows no sign of getting any less funny

But the real darkness came in Rob's steady character shift from sweet, easy-going goof to miserable control freak as, out of work and back on the bottle, his frustrations focused in on the possibility of Sharon's disloyalty. His alcoholism has sat like an unexploded bomb beneath the surface of this sitcom until now; the question that seems bound to dominate is whether it will detonate fully and take out the relationship completely.