Catastrophe

The penultimate episode in this season of Catastrophe - tragically, the last - kicked off with such a sublimely off-colour gag (about another Channel 4 show, Sunday Brunch) that I mused, mildly, that standards could only trickle downhill thence.

Should have known better. A guest appearance by Chris Noth as Rob's misogynist boss, all geezerish complicity and freezing out women (because they obviously don't have a sense of humour), was sexist in a way I had thought had been made illegal in America, but on reflection probably remains rampant (if not mandatory) in most States.

How half our own population must have cheered, then, at Sharon's calling-out of her own new and faintly creepy headmaster, in a way which surely can be done most skilfully with a soft County Meath accent and fast sense of sweary humour. Most women don't enjoy such luxurious wish-fulfilment - but, for all that, this somehow managed to achieve message with nuance, without ever losing sight of Sharon Horgan's primary objective, which is to be caustically funny throughout.