Births, Deaths And Marriages

Births, Deaths and Marriages is a new sitcom written by and starring David Schneider as Malcolm Fox, a by-the-book and seemingly dull registrar.

The registry office has recently taken on a new manager from the local car parking department called Lorna (Sarah Hadland), who has some odd ideas on increasing profit, such as converting the stationary cupboard into a reception room, organising weddings at theme parks, and limiting other weddings to ten minutes in length.

There are some strong moments in Births, Deaths and Marriages. For example, Malcolm having to officiate a wedding taking place on a roller coast, despite his crippling vertigo - and Schneider can certainly perform well - but I'm unsure about the quality of material.

I can't help but think that the wedding vows are there purely to take up space on the script. Also, the show follows the gag about disabled people not having a leg to stand on. A bit old hat, don't you think?

It's impossible to give a sitcom a decent review until it has bedded in. Imagine seeing the slapstick antics of Basil Fawlty or the bitter musings of Edmund Blackadder for the first time. Characters have to grow on us and the first episode walks a tightrope between giving the audience enough information to understand the set-up but not so much that the comedy never gets a chance to shake off the scene-setting.

David Schneider has written and stars in this sitcom about an uptight registrar. His character reminded me of Gordon Brittas (The Brittas Empire) - well-meaning, decent-hearted but utterly incompetent, and all of his staff realise this. I often smiled, never laughed out loud, but am willing to give it a fair chance.

New comedy, by and starring David Schneider, set in that crossroad of British experience, the registry office. Schneider plays Malcolm, a Chief Registrar of the old school, stickler for rules and regulations, unmarried. Sent in to work beside him and bring the office up to date is Lorna (Sarah Hadland). She's a divorcee with bright ideas, like how to make weddings make profits. How far she'll get with the workforce, spiky Mary (Sally Bretton), geeky Luke (Russell Tovey) and dizzy but sympathetic Anita (Sandy McDade) is anyone's guess.

Births, Deaths and Marriages: review

Review of new radio sitcom from Alan Partridge regular David Schneider.