Tom Conti

Sally Phillips: 'Please God, let it not be My Family'

Sally Phillips and Tom Conti talk about their new recession-era family sitcom Parents.

If the opening episode of Lloyd Woolf and Joe Tucker's family comedy doesn't exactly sparkle, it shows some promise and boasts a good cast. When Jenny Pope (Sally Phillips) is fired from her high-profile job for fighting with a colleague, the family home is repossessed, so Jenny, husband Nick (Darren Strange) and their two children have to move in with her parents, Len (Tom Conti) and Alma (Susie Blake) in Kettering. However, it seems that Len and Alma, although accommodating, are not so willing to give up their daily routine.

This new sitcom boasts a prestigious cast, including Sally Phillips and Tom Conti, and a strong premise with lots of contemporary relevance - Phillips is sacked from her job after a violent clash with a co-worker, meaning that she and her family, including her useless "entrepreneur" of a husband - must move back in with her ageing parents in Kettering. All of this may yet yield something good, but this opening episode is clunky, cardboard stuff in the main that fails to make the leap from paper to screen. There's no laugh track but for all we know there could have been a primed studio audience watching who simply failed to chuckle throughout.

Sky1 has had a good run when it comes to comedy of late - the likes of Trollied, The Cafe and Stella have all been big hits for the channel, and now Parents is hoping to repeat that success. From the minds of writing newcomers Lloyd Woolf and Joe Tucker, the series stars Sally Phillips as a working mum forced to move back in with her parents when she loses her job. Tom Conti also stars in this gentle but amusing sitcom.

Tom Conti: I would make a wonderful benign dictator...

Soon to star in a new sitcom, Tom Conti ought to be happy. But then he has the state of education, Europe and his neighbours to worry about.

This outside-the-box doc follows comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti on a most peculiar pilgrimage. We backtrack to when she was bequeathed a chest of dummies by her former mentor and lover Ken Campbell after his death in 2008. But now she has reached a crossroads in her career. So she takes her felt-and-fur friends - some cute, others creepy - to a special convention in Kentucky.

At the Vent Haven gathering we see astonishing examples of "distant voice" expertise, and Nina - daughter of Tom Conti - even uses her props to voice deeply personal confessions.

The film seems unsure of what it wants to be - it's certainly disturbing at times - but you will learn what bifurcation means.

When a young woman comes out on to Brydon's stage tonight to perform a ventriloquist's act with a monkey puppet, your heart might cringe just like it does during the really eggy bits of Britain's Got Talent.

But don't, whatever you do, choose this particular moment to go and put the kettle on.

Nina Conti provides the biggest laughs and the best surprise in the return of Brydon's chummy chat show. Considering that his other guest is Matt Lucas, that's an achievement Nina should be very proud of.

And yes, since you're wondering, she is Tom Conti's daughter.

Elsewhere, there's music from Irish rockers The Script and even more music from Matt and Brydon himself.

The line between who are the guests and who is the host on this show is nicely blurred and if it weren't for the studio audience you could imagine this working just as well in Brydon's living room.

The best interview questions come from the audience, and there's some lively banter at the top of the show as we meet The Most Easily Shocked Woman in Britain.

Miranda is very much an acquired taste. Some people think it's a skilful frolic through the campest excesses of physical comedy; others think it's a mindless collection of all things base and juvenile. The rest of us know that it's both.

The last in the current series was, naturally, a festive episode, which gave Hart the perfect excuse to indulge the gluttony and childishness that makes her so endearing.

An episode of Miranda can often be a mixed bag, but at this time of year, with everyone in a forgiving mood because they're so happy (and drunk), Hart got away with a lot of the more irritating qualities of her work, with help from the fantastic Patricia Hodge and Sally Phillips.

Tonight was also the first we saw of Miranda's father, played by Tom Conti, who filled most of the episode's falling-over quota, so that Miranda finally remained pretty vertical throughout the episode.

As she waited in for a package and then missed the delivery because of her intense dislike of carol singers, Hart proved that for all her larking about, she is a great observer of everyday dilemmas. Anyone who has ever come home to find the dreaded, 'Sorry we missed you' card in their hallway would have related to her frustration.

Best of all, she didn't fold and give us what we were hoping for in the form of a long-awaited kiss with Gary, leaving the door wide open for a will-they-won't-they third series of this excellent show.