Sharon Horgan

Carrie Fisher: Catastrophe role 'fitting tribute'

Carrie Fisher's role in the third series of Channel 4 sitcom Catastrophe will be a "fitting tribute", say its makers.

Why 2016 has been a great year for women in comedy

From Fleabag and Catastrophe to My Dad Wrote a Porno, women have been having the last laugh, says Ellie Harrison.

Top 40 TV Shows of 2016: #17 Motherland

Is this a sign 2016 wasn't a great year for comedy? The second highest-ranking sitcom in our list - if you even count Fleabag as a sitcom - was only a one-off pilot episode.

Pulling gets American remake

Cult British comedy series Pulling is heading to NBC. The network is developing an U.S. version of the 2006 BBC Three series, with the original series' creators Sharon Horgan who also starred, and Dennis Kelly executive producing. The project hails from Aaron Kaplan's Kapital Entertainment, Horgan's Merman and 20th TV.

Sharon Horgan: Women are making best TV comedy

Actress and writer Sharon Horgan has praised the number of women currently involved in high-profile comedy shows.

Undoubted comedy of the week was Motherland, a terribly truthful exposition of what it means to battle between being the "good" mother - a flawlessly moneyed, pretty, organised and quietly angry Lucy Punch - and the hopeless, exemplified here by Diane Morgan, who lives off frozen food, only gives a forlorn what-the-bugger-now sigh when she severs her finger, and is quietly happy.

Caught in the middle, as I suspect an entire 90% of British mothers are and always have been, is the phenomenal Anna Maxwell Martin as Julia, who makes the one mistake - one! - of lying, once. When asked, by the impossibly kind school to which she ferries with difficulties her two children, whether she had forgotten it was half-term, she opts for a proudly cheerful "No. No?" and so mires herself in a day of tense phone calls, criminal driving, accidental and deliberate snobbery, blood, wine and insane hunger while trying to hold down a job in event management. She's due later in her hellish week to have Peter Mandelson introduce the Women in Construction awards, which deserves an award of its own. As does the terse "I don't have to come to the office for a whole day to watch Elaine print out a press release."

"What time is it now?" she begs Liz (Morgan) as they struggle with their many kids, with prayers for it to be about 4.30pm, or if possible midnight. "Just after midday." "Fucking HELL." It's written by, among others, Sharon Horgan and Graham Linehan, features the most fascinating annoying dad yet written, and is a sure triumph.

Motherland review

Sharon Horgan and Graham Linehan's slapstick sitcom shows the fullblown apocalypse of child-rearing.

Motherland, BBC Two, review

Promising pilot of comedy about middle-class parenting.