Simon Bird (II)

Simon Bird and Joe Thomas become men in Chicken

They're famed for their roles as awkward teenagers in The Inbetweeners and now Simon Bird and Joe Thomas are shooting a new TV comedy called Chicken.

More toe-curling in suburbia as Robert Popper's delightfully daft sitcom comes to an end.

Tonight, Jackie has organised a surprise for son Adam: inviting her friend's daughter Tanya to the Goodman's Friday night meal and a spot of match-making.

The appearance of good china and odd ­background music should be a hint that something sinister is about to take place.

"Is that somebody playing the lute?" demands Adam, confused.

Adam and Tanya haven't seen each other since they used to take baths together as babies, so have a lot of catching up to do.

Needless to say, Adam would prefer to do this without his mother and deaf, parsley-eating father shouting ­encouragement.

This episode ends the series on a pinnacle of ­embarrassment.

But am I the only one who can't quite get their head around Tamsin Greig being cast as Simon Bird's mother?

If playing their real ages, she'd have been pregnant at 16. What would the neighbours say?

Adam arrives for dinner at mum and dad's, but things seem a little off-kilter. Dad Martin (Paul Ritter, who should be crowned a comedy king in a special ceremony) is dressed in a suit, the table is laid with flowers and "mum's posh bowls" - and there's an extra place set for dinner. Of course, it's a trap, one that Adam (Simon Bird) walks straight into when mum (super Tamsin Greig) announces that Tanya Green will be joining the Goodman family for their end-of-the-week get-together. Poor unsuspecting Adam has been set up on a date by his infuriatingly well-meaning mother and what follows is excruciating: an acutely painful succession of burps and nosebleeds from dad and inappropriateness from mum ("Give her a kiss hello, Adam"). But even these levels of raw embarrassment count for nothing when weird neighbour Jim (Mark Heap) arrives with Winston, his lugubrious dog. Winston has swallowed Jim's keys, which is the cue for a toe-curling sequence with man, beast, a newspaper and a twig. It's the last episode of Robert Popper's cheerfully silly comedy. Oh, how I will miss it. There'd better be a second series, Channel 4.

Last in the run of the sitcom about a Jewish suburban family. It's been low-key but likeable, each episode squirming with minor social embarrassments. Tonight, Mum (Tamsin Greig) invites a girl called Tanya over, in the hope she'll take a shine to Adam (Simon Bird), the elder of her sons. As always, the best lines come at the expense of Dad (Paul Ritter). Mum: "Jonny, don't leave your dad on his own with Tanya. He'll only start talking about Isaac Newton or somebody." Cut to Dad: "He also invented the first practical reflecting telescope..."

Robert Popper's soft-centred but sharply observed sitcom about a suburban Jewish family continues. Tonight it's hapless elder son Adam's (Simon Bird) birthday. Barmy Martin (Paul Ritter), his father, makes a disastrous attempt at a celebration roast. "Is it clay?" asks Grandma. The family decamp to the local Chinese where they run into blousy, Mercedes-obsessed neighbour Shelia Bloom (a sparkling Frances Barber). Popper's deft plotting and a top-notch cast make this a small-scale gem.

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.