Car Share

Car Share: What's so great about NOW 48?

Who wants a copy of a 16-year-old compilation album? Quite a lot of us, it seems. Sales of Now That's What I Call Music 48 surged last week, after the double CD ("featuring 41 top chart hits!") provided the soundtrack to the BBC sitcom Peter Kay's Car Share.

The week in TV: Peter Kay's Car Share

The warm wit of Peter Kay and the big brains of taxi drivers offered a welcome hit of car-bound comfort.

'Peter Kay effect' shoots Now 48 album back into charts

Fans of Peter Kay have been clamouring to buy 2001 compilation Now 48 after it was featured heavily in the new series of BBC comedy Car Share.

Peter Kay's Car Share is a direct descendant of Victoria Wood's brand of northern soulful comedy: deceptively simple, heartwarming, and delighting in the inherently naff. The first series garnered loads of praise and became one of the most watched shows on BBC iPlayer thanks to its basic but lovely premise: two colleagues who fancy each other a bit commute to work in a car. Now back for a second series, though with only four episodes, it's more of the same, though Kayleigh has moved in with her sister and, for the first half of the episode, commutes to work by public transport. In such a small upholstered world this counts as a major plot shift.

They share about a million phone calls as John (Kay) listens to the Now That's What I Call Music! (48) CD Kayleigh has given him, singing lustily along to Hear'Say's Pure and Simple and picking his nose and looking at it. There's a road rage encounter with an elderly cyclist that by the end of the working day has gone viral on YouTube, and a singalong to Bardo's One Step Further playing on Forever FM (which is still "playing timeless hits now and forever"). Mostly, though, this is comedy so gentle I didn't actually laugh.

What Car Share needs is a pair of jump leads

The slowest-moving love affair on telly is back. A traffic jam on the M62 shifts like Concorde compared to the romance between John and Kayleigh in Peter Kay's Car Share.

Peter Kay's Car Share review

A winning return for this ingenious comic gem.

Car Share is back but not worth the wait

Considering that we waited a whole two years for this new series, the next few episodes have a lot of making up to do to be honest.

Car Share: A tedious shadow of a once-promising series

By the end of the episode, both characters are firmly buckled in, back where they belong. Let's just hope that as the series progresses, so too does the plot line. At the moment, it's pure and simple: Car Share is a boring shadow of a well-executed first series.

Peter Kay's on the road to nowhere

I was one of the few people who hadn't seen it the first time around so when the second series of Car Share aired last night, expectations were high. They were not met.

Kayleigh Kitson's journey to work made no sense

Fans of Car Share were loving the return of the hit Peter Kay comedy last night. But they couldn't help noticing Kayleigh Kitson's convoluted journey from Salford to Cheetham Hill - no wonder she said she was "shattered."

Preview - Car Share

Car Share is a brilliant sitcom, in that thanks to it that it became cool to like Peter Kay again.

The beautifully observed comedy returns and, since we have been away, Kayleigh (Sian Gibson) has moved in with her sister. This means she's not commuting to work with John (Peter Kay), so the two instead wibble away via mobile. Barring a spot of bother involving a cyclist and a water bottle, not much happens, but the will-they-won't-they dynamic and dialogue are more than enough in themselves. Kayleigh: "I thought you'd gone all Darren Drown." John: "Derren ..."

Peter Kay's Car Share playlist by the numbers

Here are the tracks pumping out of John's car - with a bit of statistical analysis thrown in.

TV preview: Car Share, BBC1/iPlayer

If you are looking for romance to blossom you will have to wait a little longer.