Dreamland

Taskmaster and the underrated comic genius of Kiell Smith-Bynoe

Thanks to Taskmaster, a whole new audience is finally discovering just how funny Kiell Smith-Bynoe is. Here's where to explore his genius further...

BTS: Merman's Dreamland for Sky

For Merman's new Sky comedy drama, Dreamland, the team headed to Margate to create a show filled with bright seaside colours, but with a dark edge too.

The six-part Dreamland (Sky Atlantic) is based on Sharon Horgan's Bafta-winning 2017 short, Morgana Robinson's Summer. Part-directed by Ellie Heydon and set in Margate, it focuses on a family mainly comprising a mother (Frances Barber), a grandmother (Sheila Reid) and four sisters (including Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Gabby Best - who also writes some episodes).

One sister, Trish (Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman), is so intent on her latest pregnancy producing a girl, she holds a pink-blitzed "mani-festival" party. Into this cerise, hyper-suburban haze arrives fourth sister Mel (Lily Allen). Returning from a job in Paris, swathed in black, smoking ("Wow', just wow," sneers Trish, "being a hot mess is very 2019"), nervy Mel could not be more heavily signalled as the outsider.

While seeming at first to be about knotty family bonds, Dreamland soon becomes about secrets, the most damaging of which is nursed by - wouldn't you know it? - Mel. At first I wasn't sure about this show: it seemed stagey and garish (Margate transformed into a Technicolor riviera). However, as it bobs along, the story gets deeper, more engaging. In a strong cast (also featuring Ghosts's Kiell Smith-Bynoe), Allen holds her own, with just the occasional fawn-eyed quiver into shivering nerves.

Lily Allen reveals how Dreamland character resonates with her

The pop star makes her television acting debut in the new comedy-drama.

Dreamland review

Lily Allen is brilliant, but this comedy can feel like a bad hen do.

Kiell Smith-Bynoe: 'Ghosts has made me a trusty name in comedy'

But the actor is going back to his dramatic roots for Sky's Dreamland.

Dreamland review

Lily Allen's TV acting debut is nothing to write home about.

Dreamland review

Lily Allen gives a grounded, understated performance in this brash and bold Margate sitcom.

Dreamland review

Lily Allen lacks spark in this middling Margate comedy.

I talk to Kiell Smith-Bynoe

I caught up with Kiell Smith-Bynoe to talk about filming in Margate for Dreamland, working with Freema Agyeman and Lily Allen, keeping the fact he was doing Taskmaster a secret for almost a year as well as what Ghosts fans can expect from what we now know will be the fifth and final series.