Simon Bird (II)

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.

The opening episode of a sitcom is always tricky, but Friday Night Dinner is particularly underwhelming so far, like a less interesting version of Simon Amstell's Grandma's House.

Dad gets the wrong end of the stick, mum's weird, the neighbour's weirder, the sons revert to childish behaviour when they return home, the sofa man comes on the wrong day, the sofa gets stuck on the stairs. Perhaps this is part of a new trend for gentleness someone was telling me about. I think it's taking it too far though; it's not funny enough.

But the cast is good: The Inbetweeners' Simon Bird, Green Wing's Mark Heap, and everything's Tamsin Greig. Writer Robert Popper has an impressive CV: Look Around You, Peep Show, South Park. Maybe we'll give it one more go. The sit's established, now let's have the com.

Surprisingly traditional family sitcom from Look Around You's estimable Robert Popper. Green Wing's Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird from The Inbetweeners and Brass Eye's Mark Heap star as the Goodman family and their odd neighbour respectively. It will draw comparisons with Grandma's House in that it's about a Jewish family, but the trad exterior slowly begins to yield Popper's distinctive comic voice as this first episode warms up. Superb stuff.

If you liked the cleverly played-out dysfunctionality of Grandma's House, you'll enjoy this new comedy. Newcomer Jack Rosenthal and Inbetweeners star Simon Bird play brothers joining their parents (Tamsin Greig and Paul Ritter) at the family home for dinner. The evening descends into enjoyable farce as a man unexpectedly comes to collect the sofa bed, Dad figures out how to avoid chucking away his New Scientists and a weird neighbour (Green Wing's Mark Heap) keeps popping in to use the loo.

Last year the BBC aired Grandma's House, Simon Amstell's acerbic sitcom about a dysfunctional Jewish family. The very mixed notices it received have clearly not deterred Channel 4, who keep the middle-class Jewish mayhem coming with this new series from writer Robert Popper. Each episode centres on Friday night dinner with the Goodman family. Bickering brothers Adam (Simon Bird, star of The Inbetweeners) and Jonny (newcomer Tom Rosenthal, son of sports broadcaster Jim) are reluctant attendees, while their mother Jackie (Tamsin Greig, fresh from appearing alongside Matt LeBlanc and Stephen Mangan in Episodes) and father Martin (Pulling's Paul Ritter) try to uphold some family values. In tonight's opening episode, Jackie is intent on getting the boys to watch the MasterChef final, while Martin is preoccupied with rescuing old copies of New Scientist from the dump. Things are further complicated by the continual interruptions from weird neighbour Jim (Mark Heap), who claims to have broken his loo. As a comedy, it's not mean-spirited and cynical, but actually rather sweet. Of course, It's too early to say if it'll be a hit - in particular it is unclear whether Bird has acting gears other than his sarcastic, awkward Inbetweeners persona - but there's certainly enough here to keep you watching.

Simon Bird spreads his wings

He's best known as the nerdy sixth-former in The Inbetweeners. His next role is as an awkward suburban teenager in C4's new sitcom, Friday Night Dinner. But how close is Simon Bird to his TV persona?