Grandma's House

Is British TV ready for Jewish comedy?

As Simon Amstell's sitcom returns for a second series, Jay Richardson asks if British TV is ready to follow the US and have Jewish comedy move on from being just Jew-ish.

It's still really hard to tell where reality ends and TV begins in the second series of Simon Amstell's domestic sitcom.

And that's because this week Simon's trying to celebrate the fact that the BBC has commissioned a series in which he'll be playing himself.

"They're going to let you act on TV? Why?" gasps his mother, played by Rebecca Front of The Thick Of It fame.

Getting in the way of Simon's joyous mood is his sour-faced Auntie Liz and his very young one-night stand, who point blank refuses to go home.

It must be hard work making comedy look this laid-back.

'They're going to let you act on television? Why?' Yes, Simon Amstell's curious meta-sitcom returns tonight and it's just as flawed and intriguing as ever. This opener sees the aftermath of an MDMA-addled night out. Simon can't get rid of the 16-year-old he's picked up and, as usual, things are tense between Jackie, Liz and Clive with Simon alternating between tentative mediation and accidental provocation. There's still an air of semi-deliberate awkwardness about Grandma's House, with the excellent turns from comedy veterans such as Rebecca Front accentuating both the tension produced by the limitations of Amstell's lead performance and the self-consciousness of the show's premise. But we've got a feeling that's exactly the way he likes it.

TV review: Grandma's House

Grandma's House is a dark, smart, Jewish comedy - family sitcom for our age.

We Recommend: Grandma's House

There is a concerted effort to re-introduce most of the cast over the course of the episode, so if you're new to Grandma's House, this would be a perfectly good time to give it a chance. And pre-existing fans, yes, it's still on good form.

Grandma's House review

What I found so endearing about Grandma's House (and maybe if I'd stuck with Series 1 I would have discovered this sooner) is that was so warm, real and actually quite sweet in a strange way.

Simon Amstell's self-referential sitcom returns for a second six-part run. Tonight, the plots sees Amstell landing an acting role in a TV drama, giving rise to more jokes about him being a bad actor. Certainly, Amstell's uneasy, smirking presence shows up sharply against the bold comic performances of Rebecca Front and Linda Bassett as his mother and grandma. (Grandpa has been written out after actor Geoffrey Hutchings died last year.) But the premise of a squabbling family played for laughs generally works well.

The second series of Simon Amstell's meta comedy takes it up a notch by introducing a new fictional comedy show written by Simon, about his family. The farcical elements remain sharp, as Simon wakes up next to a man who insists on referring to him only as Simon Amstell, and the supporting cast is impeccable, particularly Samantha Spiro's angry aunt and Rebecca Front as Amstell's mother: "You're back on telly!" she beams. "I don't care if it's absolute shit."

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Simon Amstell's dysfunctional family sitcom, Grandma's House, returns for another run of gently serrated farce, in which the lapsed tormentor of pop buffoons plays an undisguised version of himself struggling to escape from his abrasive public image.

Last time he was trying to achieve something more meaningful with his life and craft - in reality, of course, he made Grandma's House - and as we reconvene he's finally been given a self-penned TV pilot. Which sounds a lot like Grandma's House. His proudly forthright Jewish mother - played by the great Rebecca Front - is naturally delighted, especially since Simon's career slump means he now lives in grandma's box room. "I can feel the shame lifting, can you?" she beams.

Like a more populous variation on Roger and Val Have Just Got In, each episode unfolds entirely within the titular abode, with the intensely self-aware Simon a perpetually mortified victim of his family's eccentricity. As before it's all very likeable, witty and controlled and Amstell has thankfully improved as an actor following a painfully self-conscious start during the first series. Indeed, they've developed his shortcomings into a running gag within the show itself - episode one is titled "The day Simon officially became a very good and totally employable actor."

The death of actor Geoffrey Hutchings, who played Simon's granddad in the first series, is deftly handled (you won't find overbearing schmaltz in this show), with his absence quietly underpinning an otherwise typically chucklesome episode in which our discomfited protagonist deals with the fall-out from a one night stand and fails to mend a possibly symbolic leak.

If I have a criticism it's that Samantha Spiro as Simon's embittered aunt is still too broad at times, although James Smith - coincidentally Front's co-star in The Thick Of It - continues to judge his performance perfectly as mum's hopeless ex-fiancée. Also, apropos motherly concern, a brief topless scene reveals that Amstell has the body of an emaciated alien. Eat, man, eat!