Stefan Golaszewski

If there's a more excruciating half hour of comedy on offer this year than last night's Him & Her: The Wedding, then please don't make me watch it. I don't think my nerves would stand it.

Writer Stefan Golaszewski unerringly distilled every cringe-making wedding speech you've ever heard as the top table at Laura and Paul's ill-fated nuptials heaved under the weight of seething resentments, frustrated passions and desperate doubles entendres. It was a car crash you had to watch through your fingers - all the while suppressing a snigger.

Because, though the humour is black as treacle, there are laughs to be mined from this delicious dissection of love turned sour. There was best man Steve, dying a thousand deaths as the room turned against him, bridegroom Paul, fondly recalling how his forbidden lover knew every contour of his body, and bride Laura, a woman intent on carnal revenge with anyone.

Till death do they part might come sooner than we think.

Radio Times review

The wedding from hell continues with the speeches: always ripe fodder for comedy and writer Stefan Golaszewski doesn't disappoint. Like many of the guests, you don't know whether to laugh or grimace at the father-of-the-bride's weak jokes and unwitting double entendres.

It's poor Steve (the superlative Russell Tovey snuffling like a puppy dog that's been kicked) who suffers the most. His off-the-internet best man's speech goes down like a lead balloon, to the delight of Becky's suave ex-boyfriend. As for the obnoxious bride, she's still reeling from last week's distressing revelation and gulps down wine like there's no tomorrow.

We've rarely seen her out of T-shirts, vests and knickers but now Becky (Sarah Solemani) is strapped into a gaudy blue bridesmaid's dress and gritting her teeth for all they're worth as sister Laura's wedding turns out to be even more of a nightmare than she'd imagined it would be. Knots will be tied in Stefan Golaszewski's sharply observed black comedy but they're more likely to be round the bride's neck than anywhere else...

Him & Her is by the far the best sitcom to have ever landed up on BBC Three, and surely the only one with roots in Harold Pinter. The swansong series, Him & Her: the Wedding, in which Laura and Paul's nuptials unfold over four episodes, is, as it should be, dominated by the bride with Kerry Howard's performance as invincibly monstrous Laura surely heading for a comedy award.

Russell Tovey and Sarah Solemani are taking more of a back seat in this series. Becky quite literally as the long-suffering bridesmaids joined Laura for a limo ride from hell.

And if one sequence demonstrated the assurance of Stefan Golaszewski's comedy, it was the one where Laura had her head out of the limo sunroof, abusing passers-by and being ignored by the bridesmaids as they enjoyed a respite from her tyranny by sending text messages.

"Observational comedy" is an over-used term, but this was the real McCoy.

Review: Him & Her

You don't need social realism to make a comedy hit home. But it's the nightmarish moments of shared recognition that have made Stefan Golaszewski's anti-romance Him & Her feel so near the funny bone.

Writers' Guild Awards 2013 shortlists

Nominations for Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine, Joanna Scanlan, Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, Stefan Golaszewski, Susan Calman, Sanjeev Kohli, Donald McLeary, David Sedaris, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram.

Him and Her: box set review

It's crude, juvenile and short on action, but Stefan Golaszewski's comedy about a lazy, flat-bound couple still manages to be heartwarming.

There are so many dramas that drop us in on couples' relationships where you can't imagine what they saw in each other in the first place, that it comes as a surprise when you're confronted with a pair of living, breathing lovers.

So my nomination for Most Believable TV Couple Of The Year 2012 (they won last year, too) goes to Steve and Becky from Him & Her, as portrayed in all their grubby, glorious affection by Russell Tovey and Sarah Solemani. They're not the usual portrait of love's young dream but there's not a heartbeat when you don't believe they are made for each other.

The third series of Him & Her has seen Steve and Becky's relationship picking up a gear, the over-arching storyline - inasmuch as a slacker comedy can muster an overarching story-line - built on Steve's plans to propose. So last night's penultimate episode took the bold step of taking us right back to the roots of their relationship. Seventeen episodes is a long time to wait to see how they first got together and it could have come a cropper. But it was a comic gem.

Writer Stefan Golaszewski gave his stars plenty of empty spaces to shuffle around each other nervously and you could almost touch the awkwardness. Tovey and Solemani were note-perfect as a pair who couldn't quite believe they fancy the bones off each other, wondering if anyone would ever make the first move.

It was all about the chemistry, and these two could bottle it up and sell it. Catch up with them before next week's finale - it's a corker.

The weekend schedules are packed with choice comedy at the moment. Like Him and Her, which is back on BBC3 for a third series. A little bit Royle Family (Becky and Steve never leave the flat), a little bit Gavin & Stacey, with a hefty dollop of toilet humour, it maintains just the right balance between scuzzy and warm and fuzzy.

Stefan Golaszewski's beautifully observed scripts spin something adorable out of nothing. This week's episode boiled down to Becky and Steve trying to find a can of beer to drink while watching Children in Need. Russell Tovey and Sarah Solemani give lovely, self-effacing performances in the central roles but, as is traditional in sitcom, it is the social climber character - Becky's sister Laura, now with added smug pregnancy hormones - who steals the best lines. She kisses everyone on both cheeks, drinks only plum juice and, when handed a mobile phone that isn't quite up to scratch, pouts, "Now, how does one unlock a Nokia?" A marvellous monster.

Russell Tovey, Sarah Soleman Q&A

They're back - loveable slobs Steve (Russell Tovey) and Becky (Sarah Solemani) return to our screens this week in the third series of Stefan Golaszewski's acutely observed sitcom Him & Her.