Stefan Golaszewski

Mum finale review

Slowly, clasped hand by clasped hand, writer Stefan Golaszewski has dismantled Cathy's barriers and subtly probed the levels of her grief.

Mum, Series 3 finale, BBC Two review

Tears of laughter and sadness.

Mum, series 3 finale, review

A perfect end to a perfect show - bring on the Baftas.

Stefan Golaszewski's subtle sitcom brims with home truths in an episode characterised by unspoken flirtation and tender yearning. Tired after a "fun-packed" day in Canterbury, Cathy steals away for a secret cigarette, tempting a forlorn Michael: "We should run off into the woods together, just the two of us." Well written.

Stefan Golaszewski interview

"The essential problem that Cathy has - the loss of self and how, across the three series, she can find that self again".

If Pauline pretending to look as though she is enjoying Joyce's Ulysses isn't enough to get you laughing, just wait until you see what else is in store as Stefan Golaszewski's exquisite comedy inches forwards. Everyone is hungover after a birthday party that saw Cathy fall asleep on Michael's shoulder. Will she ever live it down?

Behind the scenes: Mum, BBC2

After three series, the main characters in my sitcom have come to the end of their journey and - I hope - revealed a few truths about life along the way.

You couldn't really get much less dramatic than the essential smallness of Mum, in which, for the six-piece final series, the widowed Lesley Manville and her own batch (son, girlfriend, inept brother Derek, brother's dreadful snob girlfriend, love interest Michael, dead hubby's parents) have decamped to a mansion. Pauline, brother's dreadful snob GF, has paid for all via a divorce settlement to celebrate Derek's birthday in a "posh" rented mansion full of towels folded into swans.

Tender, foul, awkward, human, never less than hugely funny, this has been one of the delights in my job. To see the glee of an ensemble piece - as well as Manville, of course, and Peter Mullan as shy Michael - in this last incarnation. Creator Stefan Golaszewski has said Mum has probably run its course, and he's most likely right, but what an absence it will bring. The depth of talent was unveiled, and it was wholly right to condense this last series into one claustrophobic week; a week in which Pauline essentially admitted she was a bad person, and we remembered the very smallness of the nigglings that haunt our lives if they're allowed to.

The entire cast shone. Karl Johnson's grandpa Reg (his outrage at coming across a shampoo labelled "not tested on animals" was a particular joy); Sam Swainsbury as son Jason played a richly subtle balance of thick, kind and misguidedly worldly.

Mum works as drama just as much as comedy. The many moments when Jason and Michael are left alone in a room, a house, a garden, are utterly fraught: at every one of Michael's half-gambits at conversation, every silently insolent shrug from Jason, you will cringe and gently perspire at memories of your own awkwardnesses (taking slightly too long to wash a mug, or slightly too short a time to answer with a monosyllable).

Mum, Cathy, finally snaps, in her own, nice way. Rude to nobody, she simply saunters, champagne in its bucket and Michael's hand in hers, towards a long lovely lawn, her body language yelling a cheerful "fuck you all".

The stars and creators of Mum mull its last series

"I will miss the whole of being in this. It's very dear to my heart".