Friday Night Dinner

Anchorman's David Koechner joins US Friday Night Dinner

David Koechner has landed a role in the forthcoming US remake of Friday Night Dinner.

Greg Daniels to adapt Friday Night Dinner for NBC

After successfully adapting British workplace comedy The Office for NBC, Greg Daniels is taking on another half-hour British format for the network, this time a family comedy. I hear that NBC has put in development a U.S. version of the UK series Friday Night Dinner with Daniels at the helm.

Robert Popper's vaguely autobiographical sitcom isn't black-hearted, cruel, vituperative or blushingly filthy, yet on C4 earlier this year it still secured a devoted following of viewers who liked its inherent good-heartedness and lack of guile. Certainly this E4 rerun is very welcome and might help to keep fans going until the arrival of series two. Popper has adapted his own early family life to bring us the Goodmans: Mum, Dad and two grown-up kids, who gather round the dinner table every Friday. Mum (splendid Tamsin Greig) is daffy and obsessed by MasterChef, while Dad (Paul Ritter) is a bit bonkers, and has a bizarre obsession with his yellowing collection of ancient New Scientist magazines. It's all a bit Mike Leigh, only funnier.

How did 'Friday Night Dinner' taste?

I reviewed Channel 4's new comedy Friday Night Dinner when it debuted, and quite liked it. It was nothing special, but it was likable, although I had concerns about the inflexibility of the concept (two young adult brothers have weekly dinner with their Jewish parents), and the lack of belly laughs. As a fan of the sublime '70s docuspoof Look Around You (co-created by FND's writer Robert Popper), I was prepared to stick around to see it grow. Sitcoms often take a few weeks to settle down and find their voice, particularly a character-based comedy like FND.

Final episode in Robert Popper's superb sitcom. Mum invites Tanya Green round so she can pair her off with Adam. Johnny couldn't be happier to witness his death by a thousand humiliations. Meanwhile Jim is poised by his dog's backside, waiting for him poo out his front door key. He chats to Adam while he waits: "I knew this woman once. We met in a cave." For this line and many others FND takes its place alongside Peep Show and The IT Crowd as a sitcom C4 would do well to hang on to.

Sitcom made woman laugh so much her waters broke

A pregnant woman laughed so hard watching Channel 4's Friday Night Dinner that her waters broke and she went into labour.

More toe-curling in suburbia as Robert Popper's delightfully daft sitcom comes to an end.

Tonight, Jackie has organised a surprise for son Adam: inviting her friend's daughter Tanya to the Goodman's Friday night meal and a spot of match-making.

The appearance of good china and odd ­background music should be a hint that something sinister is about to take place.

"Is that somebody playing the lute?" demands Adam, confused.

Adam and Tanya haven't seen each other since they used to take baths together as babies, so have a lot of catching up to do.

Needless to say, Adam would prefer to do this without his mother and deaf, parsley-eating father shouting ­encouragement.

This episode ends the series on a pinnacle of ­embarrassment.

But am I the only one who can't quite get their head around Tamsin Greig being cast as Simon Bird's mother?

If playing their real ages, she'd have been pregnant at 16. What would the neighbours say?

Adam arrives for dinner at mum and dad's, but things seem a little off-kilter. Dad Martin (Paul Ritter, who should be crowned a comedy king in a special ceremony) is dressed in a suit, the table is laid with flowers and "mum's posh bowls" - and there's an extra place set for dinner. Of course, it's a trap, one that Adam (Simon Bird) walks straight into when mum (super Tamsin Greig) announces that Tanya Green will be joining the Goodman family for their end-of-the-week get-together. Poor unsuspecting Adam has been set up on a date by his infuriatingly well-meaning mother and what follows is excruciating: an acutely painful succession of burps and nosebleeds from dad and inappropriateness from mum ("Give her a kiss hello, Adam"). But even these levels of raw embarrassment count for nothing when weird neighbour Jim (Mark Heap) arrives with Winston, his lugubrious dog. Winston has swallowed Jim's keys, which is the cue for a toe-curling sequence with man, beast, a newspaper and a twig. It's the last episode of Robert Popper's cheerfully silly comedy. Oh, how I will miss it. There'd better be a second series, Channel 4.

Last in the run of the sitcom about a Jewish suburban family. It's been low-key but likeable, each episode squirming with minor social embarrassments. Tonight, Mum (Tamsin Greig) invites a girl called Tanya over, in the hope she'll take a shine to Adam (Simon Bird), the elder of her sons. As always, the best lines come at the expense of Dad (Paul Ritter). Mum: "Jonny, don't leave your dad on his own with Tanya. He'll only start talking about Isaac Newton or somebody." Cut to Dad: "He also invented the first practical reflecting telescope..."

Friday Night Dinner throws us a curve ball this week. Mum's on crutches. Dad must cook.

The horror! Even before he's walked through the door, Adam has a near-death encounter with family acquaintance Sheila "Bitchface" Bloom (Frances Barber), her husband and their precious Mercedes.

Poor Adam. And it's his birthday dinner, too.

It's all topped off with a present from Dad - a history in praise of the SS.

Wonderful present for a Jewish son, gasps Mum.

Dad gets himself in more hot water when he lets slip that his youthful relations with Bitchface may have gone beyond the one date he's previously admitted.

But the Goodmans close ranks when they encounter Bitchface later in the evening when her snobbery sets off a sort of comedic Tourettes.

They just can't help ­themselves. And we wouldn't want them to, either.