Simon Bird (I)

I love this series and I love Mum and Dad Goodman (Tamsin Greig and Paul Ritter). When the "bambinos" turn up for dinner on this particular Friday night, dad - mildly deaf and obsessed with his aged copies of New Scientist - emerges from the garage clad in a vest, shorts and cut-off wellies. "Why are you dressed like that like a sex attacker?" wonders Adam (Simon Bird). What follows is the usual collision of family in-jokes, misunderstandings and general silliness. Dad has been ordered by mum to burn his beloved magazines, but he's mapped out a ruse designed to pull the wool over her eyes. Meanwhile Aunty Val (Tracy-Ann Oberman) is on her way round to show off her mother-of-the-bride dress. I am delighted to admit that I laughed immoderately all the way through; at the gag about the mobile stuck on speakerphone; at neighbour Jim (super-twitchy Mark Heap) and his supernatural fear of his perfectly timid dog. And at dad's Join The Dots Sex Book. Don't miss.

Simon Bird sitcom hurt by Japan coverage

Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner lost viewers last night as news bulletins saw their audience increase on the day of the tsunami in Japan.

Apart from the smatterings of mildly bad language, this Jewish take on My Family remains a surprisingly cosy sitcom for a Friday night on Channel 4.

You can't fault the cast - which includes Simon Bird and Tom Rosenthal as bickering brothers who revert to toddlerhood every time they step through the front door into the family home.

The dramas are small ones and this week a family squabble manages to break out over the colour of mum Jackie's new curtains. The bright spots in all this are Paul Ritter as the bare-chested shirt-phobic dad and Mark Heap as the oddball neighbour Jim.

Those three little words: "And Mark Heap" at the start of any sitcom are like a British Standards kitemark guaranteeing that there'll be nuggets of bizarre brilliance tucked away inside - and tonight's scene involving Jim's trip to the pub with his lager-loving dog is very odd indeed.

Another Friday night, and another borderline gruesome family dinner with the Goodmans. The hapless, girl-shy Adam (Simon Bird) faces yet another painful interrogation about "females", or girlfriends, from Dad (the magnificently weird Paul Ritter): "Don't call them females" Adam whines, "they're not corpses." Tonight batty granny visits and upsets Mum (Tamsin Greig), who's already feeling generally unappreciated, by dissing her new curtains. But the most sublimely stupid bit of the episode involves barmy neighbour Jim (Mark Heap) and his dog. This superb beast does the best drunk-acting I have ever seen on television when Jim takes him to the local pub, a ghastly hole called the Black Boy. Dogs shouldn't drink beer. Really, they shouldn't.

A family comedy like no other, Friday Night Dinner is well on its way to becoming the kind of small-scale Channel 4 hit that keeps the cognoscenti coming back year after year. The chemistry between Tamsin Greig, Simon Bird, Paul Ritter and Tom Rosenthal is terrific. Tonight's antics revolve around gin, bin bags and Mrs Goodman's efforts to improve the living room décor; it's astonishing how much comedy can be mined from a pair of pee-coloured curtains.

Simon Bird interview

Long lenses, frenzied speculation and breached security barricades; over the phone from his Balearic hotel room, Simon Bird is vividly describing the sort of media coverage that's normally more associated with mega-budget Hollywood productions than a big-screen version of an E4 show...

Friday Night Dinner is turning into a tiny treasure. It's not an eventful sitcom but my, it's a funny one, with streams of uncomplicated laughs. There's a scene in a car with a VERY LOUD stereo that left me helpless; I watched it three times before I had to be dragged away and sedated. Writer Robert Popper has nailed the in-jokes, the petty embarrassments and routine bits of silliness that make family life fun, and not in a broad, pantomime-hapless My Family kind of way. Friday Night Dinner is full of surprises and the cast work together seamlessly; Tamsin Greig as a good-hearted, slightly ditzy mum, Paul Ritter as a well-meaning, barmy dad and Simon Bird (yes, Will from The Inbetweeners) and Tom Rosenthal as their grown-up but daft sons. It's endearing, too; everyone loves each other, which is why they are so comfortable with embarrassments. Well, most embarrassments. Adam (Bird) isn't too keen on being quizzed in the downstairs loo by his dad about "females" (ie girlfriends). "Do you have to call them females? You're not a policeman."

Tonight's second episode of this new observational comedy hinges on Martin (Paul Ritter) peering down his underpants with a magnifying glass when he thinks no one's looking. His grown-up sons, who've witnessed the spectacle, spend the episode wondering why. This promising comedy about embarrassing parents is quite fresh and funny, and if it lacks the bite of The Inbetweeners (whose star, Simon Bird, plays son Adam here), it's more family-friendly.

Friday Night Dinner: Sitcom Review

Friday Night Dinner is the first significant solo writing piece from the much travelled Robert Popper who is one of the men behind such hits as The Inbetweners, Spaced and Peep Show. The show which consists of the strong cast including Simon Bird and Tamsin Greig is set in the family home with the Jewish family meeting up for Friday Night Dinner which is very similar to a traditional English Sunday roast in terms of the occasion.

Friday Night Dinner squandered the talents of The Inbetweeners' excellent Simon Bird, seemed like a throwback to an earlier generation of sitcoms that needed laughter tracks to inform the audience, in the absence of any discernible humour, when a funny bit had happened.

Seldom could the absence of canned laughter have been more keenly felt than in the laboured joke of a next door neighbour repeatedly using the sitcom family's lavatory. The awkward silence can be put to profitable comic use, but ideally it should be the cause, not the result, of the comedy.