Shaun Dooley

Shaun Dooley on playing 'a complete sociopath'

The former EastEnders actor discusses playing probation worker Greg in series four - and his repeated failed attempts to get a role in Game of Thrones.

The Bafta-winning Asbo superhero comedy drama returns for a fourth series, and two newbies are joining the community service gang - Jess (Karla Crome) and Finn (Nathan McMullen). Tonight's opening episode sees a dying man with a briefcase stuffed with cash stagger into the community centre. His presence releases an orgy of greed amongst the gang, and there's a new probation worker in town, played by Shaun Dooley.

Steve Pemberton (the show's Mick Garvey) takes over writing duties for this week's hilarious dose of sun, sand and smut.

As it's the first episode not written by creator Derren Litten, I'd like to thank Steve, on behalf of all women, for making Mateo pool lifeguard and putting him in red Speedos and baby oil.

Meanwhile, Mick's not at all happy when his father and layabout brother (ably played by David Bradley and Shaun Dooley) arrive for a raucous stag do.

And no, it's not just because it's going to be in fancy dress.

Fans should note this is the first episode in five series not written by show creator Derren Litten. It's by Steve Pemberton, and Benidorm scholars - should such a body exist - will be scanning for any discernible difference. If anything, there's an upsurge in vulgarity and word play, including a hitherto unimagined double entendre for Botticelli.

Pemberton, who's slimmed down since last year, is on good form as northern everyman Mick Garvey. Tonight, Mick's dad and brother turn up, an unsavoury duo played by David Bradley and Shaun Dooley. A stag-do bar crawl ensues with the Garveys, plus Kenneth, Donald and Liam in some outrageous outfits.

After ten minutes of this gormless show you'll feel as if you're caught up in a dreadful theme-park ride that hurls you through dank tunnels of cliché. You will be left queasy by the sweetly sickly premise: a small northern town's fight to save its rock factory, and by its warm-hearted northern stereotypes. In short, Sugartown makes Candy Cabs look like The Sopranos. As for the plot - you've seen it before. A northern lad made good in the south (Tom Ellis) returns to his smalltown home ("Have I come up north or back in time?" Ho ho ho) to open a casino that will destroy everything Sugartown stands for. His brother, a nice chap who is about to get wed (Shaun Dooley, of course) owns the rock factory, which is in financial trouble. By the time you get this far, you will have lost the will to live.

Not unlike the desolate northern seaside resort in which it is set, this new series's brand of whimsical no-hoper comedy has definitely seen better days. That said, its tale of a band of plucky nutters, has-beens and never-will-bes uniting to save their local sweet factory from the clutches of an evil property developer is not entirely without charm - mostly thanks to the appealing cast led by Sue Johnston, Tom Ellis, Miranda Raison and Shaun Dooley. All the more bizarre then that the BBC One's schedulers should want to strangle it at birth by placing it in a ludicrously late slot, especially when the best they had to offer earlier in the evening was yet another yawn-inducing Inspector George Gently repeat.

Sugartown: BBC seaside comedy drama

Shaun Dooley, Tom Ellis and Georgia King star in Sugartown, a three-part comedy drama due to start on BBC One on Sunday 24 July 2011.

There's a whiff of John Sullivan's The Green Green Grass about this new show starring Ashley Jensen as Erin, a high-powered ad executive who - on a drunken internet shopping spree - buys a run-down farm in Yorkshire. As well as out-of-place Erin, there are stereotypes everywhere: a horsey next door neighbour (Sylvestra Le Touzel), a blustering family doctor (Robert Pugh), a shallow, metropolitan ex-boyfriend (Raza Jaffrey) and a nice, unsophisticated vet (Married Single Other's Shaun Dooley). It's as plodding as Erin's herd of cows, but the suggestion of subterfuge and intrigue could bode well if it becomes a series.

Struggling with bereavement, a sad and restless Eddie (the excellent Shaun Dooley, who's made MSO worthwhile) says at one point, "It's funny how death makes you feel really alive." Which might lead you, dear viewer, to think, oh lord, what next? "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"? But then, everyone in Married Single Other talks in clichés and the wispy plot is buttressed by indie ballads, a convenient shorthand for slapping the viewer across the face and saying, "Listen! This is a sad bit." Tonight we have Because by I Am Kloot (no, I haven't heard of it or them, either), as everyone looks bereft. All the relationships are, in one way or another, on the rocks, yet the ending (this is the last episode of the series) holds out the hope that everything will be all right really.

Even for Married Single Other, a drama that has fondant icing where its dialogue should be, some of this week's lines are so sickly you might need to have a bucket handy. Lillie and Eddie's wedding plans are accelerated after her recent news and she goes up into the attic to record a series of messages for her family. She tells Eddie, "I love the way kiwi fruit makes you sneeze," which is the signal for an unashamed, all-out sob-fest that takes absolutely no prisoners. Yet still the tone is wildly uneven, lurching from jokey to maudlin without pausing for refreshment, though the cast do their best to grasp at any tiny piece of credibility, particularly the splendid Shaun Dooley, who is really the emotional heart of Married Single Other. Though his beloved Lillie (Lucy Davis) is wretchedly annoying, he is so quietly sad and broken that you'd need a heart of plutonium not to share his misery.