Beautiful People

Winner of the Best Comedy Award at the Banff TV Festival (no, me neither) this sitcom is an acquired taste - a cocktail of Advocaat and helium. Simon Doonan's memoirs of Reading ("Reading: You're Welcome To It," as the road sign puts it), the start of series two finds its caricature of family life still slapping on comedy with a spangly trowel.

Surprisingly, it's written by Jonathan Harvey who penned Gimme Gimme Gimme and creates some of the funniest scripts on Corrie. In one interview he said he originally thought that writing for the soap would be beneath him. If he thought Corrie was beneath him, he must have needed a diving bell to sink to the comedic depths of Beautiful People.

The cast - including Olivia Colman and Aidan McArdle as Simon's parents - gamely give it their best shot tonight as Simon discovers that, gasp, they're not married.

Jonathan Harvey - Return of the Beautiful People

"Hoorah, it's back! And even more fabulous than ever! I'm so glad the BBC had the huge intelligence, wit and insight to bring Beautiful People back for a second series. It was such a laugh to write, and hopefully it will make you laugh too."

Beautiful comedy of '90s adolescence

A review from Australia. Finally, a show to fill the void in a post-Absolutely Fabulous world.

Beautiful People Review

Review from America: Why aren't more people talking about Beautiful People? The BBC series about Barney's creative director Simon Doonan's childhood (updated from the '60s to the '90s) is the kind of deliriously whacked-out comedy that should inspire a cult following-especially since it's produced by one of the men behind Absolutely Fabulous.

Beautiful People gets second BBC2 series

BBC2 has recommissioned Jonathan Harvey's sitcom Beautiful People.

Sometimes you just have to admit you were wrong. And, as Beautiful People limed to a disappointing conclusion, the bloom had well and truly left the cheeks of Jonathan Harvey's saga of a high camp Reading childhood.

So forget all the praise I'd heaped on it back in the beginning because all the decent jokes and imaginative set pieces got used up in the first two episodes. After that point, it went downhill quicker than Jonathan Ross's bargaining power at the BBC.

Even the arrival of Frances Barber as a madly bohemian teacher couldn't rescue Beautiful People's decline into limp-wristed cliché. Quite why Barber, an actress who could turn the weather forecast into a Greek tragedy, isn't a major star is just one of life's inexplicable injustices.

Although it's not been universally loved, the humour, music, characters, performances and classic lines ('she loved watermelooooooon' etc) have gained it a loyal and devoted audience. OK, so its '90s references aren't all that accurate (perhaps it's not considered 'period' enough to have a proper continuity team; perhaps they just didn't think continuity mattered that much) but that's generally forgivable when the show has so much energy and fun.

Jonathan Harvey's sitcom bows out with a guest appearance from Frances Barber as a new teacher at school, while young Simon and Kylie attempt to leave Reading behind to join the beautiful people in London. While each episode of this series has had bad patches, at its best it's been beautifully observed and frequently uproarious. Let's hope life in 1997 Reading isn't over quite yet, as a second series would be most welcome.

Each instalment of this comedy opens like an episode of Sex And The City. But the chirpy voice-over and shots of New York City only book end a flashback to entirely less glamorous Reading in 1997, where the younger Simon (Luke Ward-Wilkinson) inadvertently broadcasts his desire for his very own Posh Spice doll over the school tannoy system. Although this yearning places us squarely in the late Nineties, Beautiful People feels as if it is floating somewhere before that time; perhaps because of references to TV shows such as Knots Landing, which finished in 1993.

Apart from the irritating narration, I liked this when it started and since then it's been growing on me even more. The second episode improved on the first and we were even treated to some CGI trickery, as the street where the main characters live was transformed briefly into the yellowbrick road. The gran character in episode three, who turned from nice to nasty after an operation, was tremendous fun, as is the show itself. Bright, colourful and beautiful, the Doonan's are possibly the best sitcom family since the Royles. Without doubt one of the week's top highlights.