Sharon Horgan

We've always loved Sharon Horgan. We were massive Pulling fans and you know you're in safe hands whenever Sharon is attached to something. Catastrophe was the antidote to romantic comedy that had the misfortune to come before it. Crude, unflinching and with genuine heart, the series proved an instant hit for Channel 4 who commissioned a second series and rushed it out in October. Catastrophe was a breath of fresh air, Sharon and Rob clearly had a ball together and it made for a hugely enjoyable watch.

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan interviews

Catastrophe is No/ 4 in our end-of-year roundup. Here, the stars talk about filming sex scenes with friends, winning arguments by scary fast walking, and why the show is not really about bad things happening.

Best of TV 2015: No 4 - Catastrophe

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan's '49% autobiographical' comedy about the trials and tribulations of parenthood inverts the classic romcom with sexual honesty, a barrage of swearing and a wonderfully dysfunctional support cast.

With Sharon having kicked Rob out after he came clean about what happened at work with the flirty French woman, the second series of Horgan and Delaney's sitcom sees the pair thrown into a simulacrum of their dysfunctional single lives of about three years ago. Rob Delaney might be a capable foil, but Sharon Horgan is the real draw here; in her namesake she has created one of the most self-possessed, aspirational and intentionally funny women on television since Elaine in Seinfeld.

Who works and who stays at home? Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan's almanac of parenting stress reaches the stage where careers and childcare clash. She considers returning to teaching, despite the younger kid only being four months old, while he considers leaving his job, despite earning all their money. As is traditional in a sitcom-with-a-story, this penultimate episode delivers a crisis: both stars have the acting chops to make the anguish real without losing laughs.

Rob Delaney & Sharon Horgan interview

We grill the two creator-stars of Catastrophe.

Catastrophe box set review

Sharon Horgan's Irish teacher and Rob Delaney's American advertising guy are a perfect, witty fit as two strangers drawn together by sex - and then pregnancy.

Round two of Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney's deeply funny romcom continues, as the pair visit Paris in order to revive their sex life. But not even a Channel crossing can curb their squabbling, especially with Sharon's post-pregnancy body a ticket to both traumatic boob issues and infuriating pharmacy visits. Despite mining sitcom tropes of yore (language barriers; dodgy interactions with masseuses), its diligent cataloguing of emotional minutiae reroutes it into something that feels relevant and real.

Radio Times review

It's Sharon (Sharon Horgan) and Rob's (Rob Delaney's) third anniversary, but this episode of this gloriously honest, filthy and funny comedy focuses a lot more on their circle of friends - most of whom are dipping their toes into the singleton market and finding how tough it is. Chris (Mark Bonnar) cavorts with a prostitute while his estranged wife Fran (Ashley Jensen) is finding her clingy new boyfriend a bit much.

Rob's fabulously obnoxious American friend Dave (Daniel Lapaine) is also finding things tricky with pretentious new squeeze Catherine (which may make you warm to him a bit more). It's lonely and tough out there and it's comforting when we're back in the tender bosom of the main couple.

Radio Times review

Sharon (Sharon Horgan) has now got over her anxieties about bonding with baby Muireann, the child with the unpronounceable name. In fact she is so attentive that a sexually frustrated Rob (Rob Delaney) accuses her of behaving like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, salivating over her "precious".

It's another familiar dilemma explored by this filthily funny comedy that will feel painfully close to home for many couples. As will the pair's attempt to remedy matters with a weekend away in Paris, which contains some excruciatingly hilarious moments.

They could row for their countries these two, and Horgan and Delaney's effortlessly nimble writing is brilliant at showing how arguments can escalate - even in two minutes of screen time. A restaurant ruckus is very funny and (again) eerily plausible, and a scene with a dodgy hotel masseur really does take things to the brink of very dark.

But just when things begin to look as if they may go pear-shaped they pull it back, thanks in large measure to their warmth, verbal inventiveness and extraordinary chemistry. This really is top-class comedy.