Sharon Horgan

The increasingly good decisions of Sharon Horgan

Comedian Sharon Horgan on starring in new comedy series The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, and why she's finally ready to play the love interest.

Stanley Park clearly aspires to the E4 mould of teenage comedy like The Inbetweeners and Misfits. Though Morwenna Banks plays a mum, as in Skins, these are not the angst-ridden, articulate youths of that show, but more gormless, ordinary adolescents who snog people at the swing park and argue about Twitter.

It's hard to sum up the premise and the plot didn't seem to have much scope, as confident, doll-faced Debbie who believes that she's sex on legs got off with the virginal twit that her more gothic friend liked. The characters seem to have more going on than could be fitted in here, perhaps because they originate from a stage play. There were some funny lines though: when the boy's parents walked in on him and Debbie, who had been snacking on crisps during underwhelming kitchen sex, his mum wailed: "I've just had that table varnished... wait, are those my chargrilled chicken crinkles?" "I couldn't help myself, they were more-ish," shrugged the vamp.

Having had her own fine sitcom, Pulling, pulled by BBC3 for being too old for the channel's demographic, poor Sharon Horgan has had insult added to injury by being cast as the past-it, lonely auntie. Ouch.

In the first of tonight's two BBC3 pilots, Leo Richardson's stage play transfers to the screen in a riot of txt speak, Lambrini and adolescent angst like a teenage Sex And The City set in the suburbs of Croydon.

Holliday Grainger plays the beautiful but slutty Dirty Debbie, whose scatter-gun approach to love wreaks havoc among her more sensitive friends and neighbours.

Among the grown-ups look out for Sharon Horgan, unrecognisable as Debbie's Auntie Pat, while the young cast are all eye-catching and plausible, like a walking manual to noughties etiquette. "I can't follow everyone who follows me (on Twitter)," complains the lovely Ben. "How would that look? That's like Facebook."

Sharon Horgan talks BBC pilot Stanley Park

Sharon Horgan is a comedian, writer and actor. She's best known for BBC Three's cult hit Pulling. You can next see her on screen in Stanley Park, in which she plays Aunty Pat.

Sharon Horgan on the Pulling Special

With the Pulling Special nominated for three British Comedy Awards including Best Television Comedy Drama, we asked star and co-writer Sharon Horgan to tell us what it was like to get the gang back together one last time.

This year's series of hit-and-miss comedy show pilots continues with The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, about a US executive (Arrested Development's David Cross) who finds himself out of his depth when he is mistakenly sent to run his company's UK arm. Russell Tovey and Sharon Horgan are among the supporting cast.

David Cross is great. Let's get that out of the way. He's great. This sitcom, where he plays a klutz accidentally sent to the UK to sell energy drinks was never going to be terrible. It was obviously going to be the best of C4's miserable Comedy Showcase run. But no matter who your big name Arrested Development stars are (Cross and Will Arnett - apparently Spike Jonze is in it too but we missed him in the cut we watched), you really shouldn't waste Sharon Horgan in a role as a waitress. Come on. Sharon Horgan is really very, very good. Also, this is supposed to be a chance for new comedies to make their mark. What are the chances of everyone involved in this making an a series for C4? Grow up. Just give them the money to make a one-off.

Another gem of a pilot from C4's Comedy Showcase testing ground. Todd (David Cross) is a brash American sent to London to sell an energy drink to an unsuspecting British public. Trouble is, our culturally narrow-minded protagonist soon finds himself a fish out of water, and hindered further by his unhelpful English assistant (Russell Tovey). It plays out well, and there is enjoyable support from an Anglo-American cast that also includes Will Arnett and Pulling's Sharon Horgan.

Fans of the cult US comedy Arrested Development will recognise David Cross who played Tobias Funke in that series. This pilot for C4's Comedy Showcase series is his first project for the UK, co-written with Shaun Pye who played Greg Lindley-Jones in Extras - the RADA graduate who was Ricky Gervais's bitter enemy.

So what's this all about? It starts in the US with Todd Margaret (Cross) accidentally promoted by his psychotic boss to head up a UK operation selling energy drinks. Overhearing Todd repeating the aggressive patter on a self-help CD convinces him Todd is the right man for the job - despite being a meek office drone who couldn't sell a sandwich to a starving man. His arrival in London unleashes more misadventures - as well as a meeting with comedy star Sharon Horgan who plays a cafe owner.

By the end of this sharply scripted episode you'll be hoping for a full series to find out what happens to him next - and you can't ask any more of a pilot than that.

The premise for Channel 4's latest sitcom pilot is simple enough. Todd Margaret (David Cross from Arrested Development) is a hapless American office drone sent to London to sell energy drinks. It's only because of a nicely worked misunderstanding that he was chosen in the first place, and Todd proves comically inept from the word go. His mission promptly unravels, starting with his fleecing by a cab driver and the controlled explosion of his luggage by a bomb squad. From there, we gather that things will get far worse, because a prologue involves Todd standing in court as a list of charges is read out by a judge, including "funding a terrorist organisation, possession of biological weapons, treason..." before a caption whisks us back "14 days earlier..." No doubt the writers could cheerfully mine enough material from those 14 days to fill a series, but what we get in tonight's pilot feels more like the opening of a quirky indie film than a sitcom. That doesn't mean it's not funny. It is. But you long for the close plotting and farcical twists of, say, The Worst Week of My Life. Also, it seems daft to cast a wonderful comic actress like Sharon Horgan (from Pulling) as a cafe waitress and then give her so little to work with. Even so, there are hints of something good here.