Citizen Khan

Citizen Khan taps into the best traditions of sitcom

After a shaky start, Citizen Khan seems to have come through unscathed.

In a bid to perk up his depressed mother-in-law, Mr Khan (Adil Ray) takes her to the bingo but - and this is the basis of an entire episode's worth of action - it's at a working men's club rather than the mosque. Now into its second series, Ray's sitcom revels in what it probably thinks is a gentle parody of xenophobia - Khan delivers a speech on why he doesn't want ginger people working at the mosque, for example - but inverted bigotry, if it ever was funny, certainly doesn't seem that hilarious now.

A second series for "community leader" Mr Khan (Adil Ray[/o]), and his gentle, old-fashioned comedy: the kind that derives from foolish men and their long-suffering families. In this opener, charmingly thick daughter Alia has failed her exams, so Mr Khan attempts to move her into the local Catholic school on a scholarship. In the process he tangles himself in a web of lies, culminating in a home visit from the headmaster (James Fleet). Meanwhile, older daughter Shazia has invited friends round for dinner; mild high jinks ensue.

Adil Ray returns in the title role of this cheerfully old-fashioned sitcom, which seems designed to underscore the point that, hey, Muslim families have the same complications and worries as everyone else. Really, who'd have thought? Tonight, our man Khan is beset by daughter troubles, with one failing exams while another has a head full of wedding plans. What is a good dad to do?

Radio Times review

When the first series stirred controversy some commentators pointed out that treating Muslims as part of the cultural scenery by subjecting them to an old-school domestic sitcom was a kind of flattery. It might be more flattering if the comedy was better. Adil Ray's clumsily self-important "community leader" is a great character but the series rhythms are painfully dated, an effortful farce that relies on jokes about farting in the bath and tempting granny off her armchair with biscuits.

In this episode, Khan has to make a good impression on one daughter's would-be bridesmaid as well as the other daughter's potential headmaster - a creaking recipe for disaster. But occasionally a joke carries some weight: "We Pakistanis don't have bridesmaids," observes Khan at one point, "In our culture, your bride becomes your maid - your housemaid, chambermaid, teasmaid..."

Primetime BBC comedy has been stuck in a '70s groove in recent years, with such laboured, lazy throwbacks as The Wright Way and Mrs Brown's Boys. This fetishistic nostalgia for some half-remembered grannies 'n' kids' tea-time sitcom nirvana reaches a heady low with the return of Citizen Khan for another series of toddler-friendly mugging and end-of-the-pier smut.

Adil Ray's puffed-up paterfamilias and would-be community leader Mr Khan was one of the highlights of R4's spoof phone-in Down the Line and its maligned TV offshoot Bellamy's People, but here he's stifled by a routine family setting and truly appalling gags that don't so much pepper the script as smother it with lumpy custard. Missed opportunities to celebrate and/or spear cultural attitudes abound, with creaky fallback references to the hokey-cokey, Lulu, bingo, the novelty of men in the kitchen and internet-savvy pensioners flooding in to plug the gaps.

There's a neat turn from Felix Dexter and a welcome return to telly for Matthew Cottle (the ginge from Game On), but these are drops in an ocean of twaddle, the depths of which are reached as Mr Khan mimes a selection of farm animals to his - yes, you guessed it - much-despised mother-in-law.

Citizen Khan, BBC One, series two, review

Citizen Khan may lack sophistication, but the visual language of BBC One's sitcom about a Muslim family in Birmingham is spot on.

Citizen Khan and the importance of critic-proof shows

The critics hated Adil Ray's sitcom, but viewers loved it, much like Mrs Brown's Boys and Splash! If reviewers ignore popular appeal, they risk being ignored themselves.

Adil Ray: 'Don't allow yourself to be offended'

Sitcom writer on dealing with death threats and the importance of creating nostalgic family comedy.

Adil Ray interview

TV Choice speaks to the show's creator and writer Adil Ray, who also plays Mr Khan...