Sharon Horgan

Though Free Agents is a droll and very winning romantic comedy, don't expect soft-focus hearts and flowers. Yes, it's sweet and poignant, but it's also frequently filthy - imagine Richard Curtis doing dirty. The pairing of Stephen Mangan and Sharon Horgan as its emotionally stunted leads - talent agents Alex and Helen - is an inspired one. He's sad and embittered after a messy divorce and misses his children; she binge-drinks to blot out her obsession with her dead fiancee. They have a disastrous date where he cries after sex, then face the crippling embarrassment of having to work together, day in, day out. This possibly sounds gruesome, but it's not; Free Agents (you might recall its 2007 pilot) is a deliciously skewed romance that's adult, modern and funny. And Mangan and Horgan are appealing as two lost and damaged souls in search of happiness.

A convincing new sitcom about a pair of ditzy talent agents, Alex (Stephen Mangan) and Helen (Sharon Horgan), who become romantically involved while contending with their bizarre, sexually charged London workplace. At morning meetings, Stephen (Anthony Head), the company boss, expects his agents to stump up lurid stories of their sexual exploits. In reality, Alex and Helen are rather sadder and much more ordinary. Alex has been sleeping in the office ever since his divorce, and Helen is getting over her fiance's recent death. Mutual loneliness leads the two of them into bed. Part farce, part satire, Free Agents has a sweetly understated tone.

Free Agents is a new romantic comedy series, wallowing in obscenity, about a dysfunctional couple failing to have an affair. Personally I enjoyed it a lot, although I probably wouldn't recommend it to my 84-year-old mother. The couple concerned are a divorced father-of-two (Stephen Mangan) and a work colleague (Sharon Horgan) whose fiancé dropped dead at the age of 34.

The Mangan character is broke, homeless and about as sexually sophisticated as a 15-year-old born-again Christian, while his nongirlfriend is suffering from posttraumatic death disorder. They work together in an actors agency run by a cynical old goat (Anthony Head), out of whose mouth pours a stream of uncensored filth. It works because, deep beneath the brittle layer of self-conscious trendiness, it is an old-fashioned love story with its own perverse brand of charm.

Free spirit for new comedy

In a modern office building towering above Euston station, Stephen Mangan, Anthony Head and Sharon Horgan have been hard at work on a new Channel 4 comedy.

Sharon Horgan - gorgeous, talented and funny

Horgan, 38, is gorgeous, talented and funny. She started writing comedy only six years ago, after leaving Ireland for London in her late teens, attending second-rate acting schools, doing an awful lot of waitressing and, in her late twenties, going to Brunel University to study English.

Feature: Free Agents

As if today's celebrities weren't rude enough, here's a sitcom about their even ruder agents. The Telegraph visits the set of Channel 4's new comedy series Free Agents and meets cast members Sharon Horgan, Stephen Mangan and Anthony Head.

Sharon Horgan's cult comedy ran for two series, but has been denied a third. It seems it doesn't matter how well received Pulling was, BBC3 is now so narrowly focused on its young audience that there's no place for a show about 30-somethings, even if they are slatternly, emotionally retarded drunks.

It's an intermittently hilarious parade of cartoonish characters and crude, often cruel set pieces, with Tanya Franks particularly salty as an alcoholic primary school teacher. Pulling wasn't a classic, but it deserved more time.

In deeply dispiriting but strangely not surprising news, BBC3 has axed Pulling, a decision that will persuade no one that Danny 'Phoo Action' Cohen isn't a moron. I suppose that without Pulling around, Coming Of Age won't look quite as atrocious but is that really reason enough to axe one of the finest comedies on TV? I suppose if there ever was a third series of Gavin and Stacey, Cohen would pass on that too because every recommission means one less space for a new project. You can only hope that one of Janice Hadlow's first decisions as controller of BBC2 would be to offer a home to Sharon Horgan and Dennis Kelly's marvellous comedy. Good knows it doesn't have anything remotely funny of its own at the moment. Unless you count Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful People. Which I don't.

With Gavin & Stacey scooping the big prizes, I do worry that BBC3's other brilliant comedy Pulling is getting a little overlooked. It never fails to make me laugh and, although the storylines are completely mad, they somehow work brilliantly.

I'd love to see this for a third series but I wonder if the barrage of people who switch off after their weekly dose of Gav and Stacey have blown the chances of this Sharon Horgan masterpiece getting another outing.

Sharon Horgan is a favourite of ours and this sitcom - deservedly in its second series - shows off her acting and writing talents superbly.

The show is never far away from a shocking moment but it's all done in the best possible tastelessness. It is packed with plot and scenes of clever farce but also has time for lots of well-observed, dry dialogue. What the characters say is funny when they think they're being funny and equally funny when they think they're being serious.