Sheridan Smith

Alan Davies: "Terrible Climate Of Fear"

You can count on QI and Jonathan Creek star Alan Davies to give an honest opinion. Last month I took part in small round table interviews in London with Alan, co-star Sheridan Smith and writer David Renwick ahead of the new Jonathan Creek film - The Judas Tree where Davies spoke about "the terrible climate of fear" in British TV today.

How did they know the number? Within 11 minutes of Gavin settling into his new office in Wales, his family and friends were all ringing him on his work phone to find out how he was doing. Did he send them a text containing his extension - before he even knew how to work his office phone? Was it a round-robin e-mail? I mean, we all do it before starting a new job - send our family and friends the number. Or perhaps they looked up the switchboard number of the firm in the Yellow Pages and called there. I mean, there's no way they'd use his mobile phone number. The cost of calling some networks can be prohibitive.

Obviously, this was part joke/part characterisation. They're worried about him! They're making things worse! And really, it shouldn't be over-analysed because at least it was a joke, even if it didn't work. We should be grateful for its presence because Gavin And Stacey doesn't usually bother with jokes. As every newspaper will tell you, Gavin And Stacey is warm. (Warm is defined as 'a mawkish soap-opera similar in style to late series of Only Fools And Horses'.)

It's true that the rest of the show was searingly original - a swearing granny, the robot dance, Sheridan Smith as a young ******* and James Corden's heroic attempt to maintain his position as the most punchable face on television.

By tvBite's reckoning, there were three and a half jokes in the first episode. None of them were funny. None of them worked on their own terms (Gavin's phone number, how did Nessa only hear her baby through a monitor when it was on the other side of the bed?).

Still, there are unbelievable things that happen in real life. Who'd laugh at a show with no jokes, patronising characters (Yes, they ARE. Look at Pam Ferris and Nessa's fiance) and James Corden? What kind of world would shower this show with awards and claim it was well-written? It's total fantasy.

It's brash, bold and, despite its poor innuendos and obvious crudeness, at times quite brilliant in its sending-up of the working-class stereotype of the popular Spanish tourist destination. In tonight's second episode of the third series, Mick (Steve Pemberton) and Janice (Siobhan Finneran) are having relationship troubles and Brandy (Sheridan Smith) plays a practical joke on the bumbling Martin (Nicholas Burns).

Sheridan Smith stars in the hit ITV comedy based in a holiday resort.

You can take the girl out of Two Packets of Lager and a Pint of Crisps, but you can't take the, er, lager and crisps out of the girl... Indeed, in tonight's edition of this sunny sitcom, Sheridan Smith concocts the sort of prank that she'd normally play on Will Mellor or Ralf Little. However, with neither of them around, she stitches up a gullible Martin, who ends up legging it through a tourist attraction in the nip...

Usually, I don't mind things that are a little down-market. You know: chips, tower blocks, Total Wipeout, that kind of stuff. It can be quite amusing. But Benidorm is at least one rung too far down the ladder. Not the place, which I went to once for a holiday (ironic of course) - it was rather charming. But the ITV sitcom, which is back, inexplicably, for a third series. Well, there is an explanation of course: millions of people watch it. The mystery is why they do.

"My mind and body have been finely tuned," Johnny Vegas's character tells Mateo, the Spanish hotel bar man, threateningly, by the pool.

"Finely chewed by what?" asks Mateo. Tuned, chewed, a misunderstanding joke, do you see? There's a sunburn joke, too. And a bit of light innuendo:

"Another 10 minutes and you would have missed Madge's big entrance."

"I don't like the sound of that."

I think it was innuendo, anyway. Anyway, it's all so terribly limp and clunky and obvious. The arrival of Sheridan Smith as Martin's new friend Brandy is a little injection of life. But it will take more than one busty loud-mouthed scouser to save Benidorm. Not that it needs to be saved, unfortunately; millions will continue to watch no doubt, and more series will be commissioned.

This popular, tasteless and occasionally funny drama following British people in a holiday resort returns. Tonight, Mel (Geoffrey Hutchings) enlists the help of Mick (Steve Pemberton) to open his new mobility shop, with disastrous results. Meanwhile Martin (Nicholas Burns) has a new girlfriend, Brandy (Sheridan Smith). The comedy is hit and miss, but the performances are good, and so Benidorm wins points for trying.

Forget your sun, sea and sex - it's more like sunburn, swearing and mobility scooters. All the familiar faces are back for a third series at the Solana resort in Benidorm. After the rooftop hijack they've been offered a free vacation as compensation, which explains why they just can't keep away from this all-inclusive holiday hell.

Episodes are now an hour long but, apart from that, little has changed except that timid Martin (Nicholas Burns) has finally split from his wife. He turns up with a new companion, a sexy Scouser named Brandy (Sheridan Smith). He insists they're just friends, although she seems too far out of his league to even be a distant acquaintance.

The Oracle (Johnny Vegas) is being driven mad by poolside puzzlers and Mel is opening a new store where his bad luck with electricity looks set to continue.

Derren Litten's Costa-del-Hell comedy returns for a third series. It's the same gallery of grotesques who gather once again by the pool of the all-inclusive hotel Solana: the fractious Garvey family; corpulent swingers Donald and Jacqueline; and drip Martin, who has mislaid his wife and arrives instead with a brassy blonde called Brandy (guest star Sheridan Smith) in tow. By now we're used to Benidorm's broad comic brush. The characters don't just argue, they hurl curses at each other. If someone has an out-of-date mobile phone, it's not just a few years old but a big 1980s brick. When a character gets comically sunburnt, it's because he was wearing a silver suit and riding a 12ft-high bicycle. Nothing happens by halves. But although the comic timing is laboured, the re-creation of hellishness can be spot on. The scene where The Oracle (Johnny Vegas) is driven mad by his mum's trivia-quiz ignorance is inspired, and Geoffrey Hutchings' scooter mogul Mel is superbly awful.

Not since Gwen Taylor and Keith Barron kept finding themselves in the same hotel as that posh couple in Duty Free have a bunch of chalk-and-cheese holidaymakers been so unfortunate to end up sharing their vacations together so often. Back at the Solana Resort on a freebie (a present for winning Best Comedy at the National TV Awards, perhaps?), the gang will be joined by outlandish guest turns Sheridan Smith, Robin Askwith, Una Stubbs, Tim Healy and Mr Keith Barron himself.

tvBite has always found Sheridan Smith much warmer and funnier doing interviews for any of her low-rent shows (Royle Family apart) than she actually is on screen. So it's a mixed blessing to see her parachuted in to the first ep of the third series of ITV's flagship (only) sitcom. She donates a wiggle and a rasping scouse accent to the hour-long special, which adheres to the sitcom formula in its strictest sense. It's very much a series of set pieces linked by location. Some of the set pieces make you want to crush the writers' knuckles with a hammer (an out-of-control toy hovercraft chasing a Spanish waiter); while others are undeniably amusing (Johnny Vegas's character getting irritated by the stupid crossword answers). The good moments (mainly coming from the impressive cast) make you realise that there's something in there that makes it all worthwhile.