Tamsin Greig

Review: Friday Night Dinner, C4

There is nothing particularly groundbreaking here. Just a lovely, well-observed, faintly farcical fast-moving storyline as one minor white lie - they claim Jackie's mother has died so that they can cancel dinner and turf Tony out - sends events spiralling out of control.

Tamsin Greig on the new series of Friday Night Dinner

"You step over the threshold of your parents' home and you're instantly transported back to your childhood," muses the 50-year-old actress. "Jackie is pushed around by her children because she has an overwhelming need to be wanted by her two sons."

Green Wing reunion for the junior doctors strike

The cast of the Channel 4 comedy Green Wing have reunited after 10 years on the picket line of the junior doctors strike.

Radio Times review

Because Jeffrey Klarik and David Crane have created such a host of fabulous supporting characters over the four series of Episodes, Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig's bemused-Brits-in-LA Sean and Beverly can take a back seat in this hilarious season finale and let the carnage unfold around them.

The Matt/Merc feud reaches an exquisitely absurd climax on the set of the LeBlanc-fronted new game show The Box (is it me or is the format for this actually quite good?). And Helen Basch's envious suspicions about her girlfriend Carol also come to a head in a rollicking 30 minutes that shows just how deftly plotted Klarik and Crane's writing is. Thank the showbiz gods there will be another series. Or as Matt might put it: "Bring on the bugs!"

Series four of Episodes is the best yet

As the curtain falls on the fourth series of the Matt LeBlanc, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan comedy, Ben Dowell says the show has never been better.

Radio Times review

Jealous studio boss Helen Basch (Andrea Savage) hates Tamsin Greig's Beverly because she thinks she loves her girlfriend Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins). Helen also hates the oily Merc Lapidus so she sets him up to do a game show with his sworn enemy, the cash-strapped Matt LeBlanc. Matt's not talking to Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly either, because the Brit abroad writers snubbed his services for their hot new show.

Packed with brilliant lines, this is an eventful episode that shows how nimbly plotted this suave, assured, knowing, skilled and very funny comedy is - and the surprising directions it can take you. A joy.

Radio Times review

If Matt's money worries weren't bad enough, his dad's heart attack could push him over the edge. Dick LeBlanc (a fabulously grouchy Alex Rocco) is living in a condo that his cash-strapped son needs to sell. But will he survive surgery?

It's a bleaker-than-usual visit to sunny LA, with most of the action focused around Dick's hospital bed where, bizarrely, Beverly and Sean (Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan) have joined the vigil. But the gags are still pretty sharp, especially when it comes to the regular telephone bulletins Beverly gets from the deliciously insecure Carol.

Radio Times review

The Matt LeBlanc comedy has been on form this series, partly because it has been unafraid of pushing the boundaries of taste. And this episode is another deliciously questionable corker that sees Matt agreeing to make a paid celebrity appearance at a war criminal's birthday party in order to allay his growing financial worries. It's either that or leaking a sex tape.

And the vile former network boss Merc Lepidus rears his head in about as literal and unwelcome a fashion as possible. Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig's bewildered Brits Sean and Beverly continue to battle Sean's former writing partner (also known in LA as "that Tim guy") and there is a deft cameo from a surprise guest.