Cuckoo

Greg Davies: I have a terrible work ethic

Greg Davies - all 6ft 8in of him - is perched on a pub stool looking like a man in dire need of a cigarette.

The plot of Cuckoo revolved around Rachel - an 18-year-old who initially had a touch of the Saffy-from-Ab-Fab about her - who returned from her gap year married to our eponymous hero after meeting him at a Full Moon Party.

Hearing your daughter wed a hirsute hippy in a 'genuine Thai ceremony on a beach' and that you could have known about it earlier, if only you'd checked your Facebook messages, is not exactly every parent's dream. In fact, it's something of a nightmare. The reaction of Greg Davies and Helen Baxendale's characters was a little off in this sense, as you'd imagine the revulsion of such involved, middle-class parents at such a situation would be slightly more hysterical than the script seemed to allow for.

But generally, this inaugural episode was pretty hard to fault. It wasn't side-splitting at all times, but as amusing, smart and inventive comedies go, it worked. Tamla Kari as Rachel was the weak link here, but that's fine, because despite her story being at the centre of Cuckoo, it's not Rachel who is the point of this series; it's her parents and her new husband.

And by the looks of things, the strong performances by Samberg, Davies and Baxendale will be enough to carry this amusing effort throughout the entire series.

Back in the dark old days of 'children should be seen and not heard', there used to be a thing called the Generation Gap. I thought that, in these days when parents fall over themselves to be their kids' best mates, older sisters/brothers, anything but actually parents, that it had disappeared. But maybe not.

On the surface, Cuckoo (BBC3) was a gap year comedy, with a wacky middle-class daughter returning to her suburban home with hippy husband in tow. Cue much middle-class outrage. But for all its contemporary setting, Cuckoo is a throwback to 1970s sitcoms, parents and offspring beamed in from different planets, the old and new worlds banging heads in the hope of getting some dizzy laughs.

And there are some, thanks to a barnstorming turn from Greg Davies as the dad, Ken, appalled his daughter has hitched her wagon to New Age American airhead Cuckoo when he'd been hoping for a 'a doctor, a lawyer... an Aston Villa supporter'. It was hard not to feel Ken's pain.

There's the seed of a good idea here but the daughter is such a dipstick and Andy Samberg's Cuckoo so - Ken's description - vapid, it was hard to believe anyone, even BBC3's target youth audience, wouldn't have lined up on Ken's side of the gap. There'll be a journey - maybe they'll all learn to love each other, but it's going to be hard to swallow.

Review: Cuckoo, BBC Three

Cuckoo is broad, amiable, undemanding fare, lifted by some pleasing performances and a few good gags.

Greg Davies interview

6ft 8in Inbetweeners actor Greg Davies is starring as husband to Friends and Cold Feet beauty Helen Baxendale in a new sitcom. 'Me married to Helen Baxendale? Like THAT would happen in real life'.

Cuckoo smashes BBC Three comedy record

BBC Three's Cuckoo began with over a million viewers last night, becoming the channel's most-watched comedy launch.

Ken and Lorna are two upstanding parents who want the best for their daughter so you can imagine their horror when she comes home from a gap year with a surprise husband - an idiotic American hippy - in tow. Helen Baxendale and Greg Davies (aka Mr Gilbert from The Inbetweeners) star in this promising new sitcom, with Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg joining them as the antagonistic new son-in-law.

Chances are you won't know the star of this new sitcom, but Andy Samberg is well known in the US as a regular on Saturday Night Live and as part of the comedy troupe The Lonely Island.

Here he plays an American hippie called Cuckoo, perhaps not the last person on Earth you'd want your ­brilliant daughter to bring home from her gap year in Thailand, but not your first choice for ­son-in-law material, either.

Thanks to Samberg's subtly distracted performance, this is even funnier than it must have been on the page.

Cuckoo is new-age nonsense personified, but still cheesy enough to nick a chat-up line from Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Helen Baxendale and Greg Davies play shocked parents Lorna and Ken, with Tamla Kari as their smitten daughter Rachel and Tyger Drew-Honey from Outnumbered as Rachel's brother.

The scene when he ridicules Cuckoo over his name is even funnier when you remember his own name is Tyger.

Cuckoo is an American hippy who spends his days sleeping, meditating to whale music and spouting new age nonsense. Imagine the horror of Ken and Lorna, a very conventional couple from Lichfield, when their darling daughter returns from her gap year with a ring on her finger and this dreadlocked idler on her arm.

Stand-up comedian Greg Davies (best known as the vindictive headmaster Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners) plays Ken and is a joy to watch: all boggling eyes and flared nostrils. Helen Baxendale is more restrained as Lorna, Outnumbered star Tyger Drew-Honey plays the petulant younger brother and US actor Andy Samberg, a former Saturday Night Live regular, is brilliantly barmy as Cuckoo. This first episode takes a while to find its feet but the final scene is a corker.

Andy Samberg interview

Cuckoo star Andy Samberg tells Metro about learning from Justin Timberlake, life as a camp counsellor, and why not all his band's songs are about genitals.