In With The Flynns

BBC continues unabated with its ungodly pact with Will Mellor, cruelly ignoring public demand or opinion. With a Beady Eye song serving as both theme tune and warning to quickly change channel, the Flynn family return for another series of non-jokes and situations that only work if all the characters are stupid. Here, we get supposedly hilarious mix-ups over a poached cod and a bungling burglar. It's written by Men Behaving Badly's Simon Nye, who used to knock out decent ribald comedy with a hand tied behind his back. Here, he attempts to do it with both hands tied.

Three episodes in and we've reached the old sitcom standby of dad having the snip, albeit with Tommy and Jim adding some refreshing "wingmen" humour to the situation.

Yes, if there are two men you don't want around when a doctor is approaching your nether regions with a knife, it's grandad and uncle Tommy.

But after Caroline has a pregnancy scare, Liam turns to his dad and brother for moral support.

And thank God he does because the waiting room scenes are the highlight of what's turning out to be a rather watchable series, despite its frequent habit of raiding the Comedy Cliche Cupboard.

And for once, the Krameresque Tommy doesn't steal the show. No, that honour goes to Liam's bum-cheeks. If you've ever wondered how a pre-watershed sitcom would handle naked star jumps, Will Mellor provides a surprising demonstration.

That gym membership was certainly a good investment.

TV review - In With The Flynns, BBC1

The latest comedy offering from the BBC is certainly ideal pre-watershed viewing - no sex, no swearing and no violence. Alas they also left out the laughs.

Out with the Flynns

Two episodes down and In With The Flynns has yet to offer much hope for the sitcom-lover. For those yearning for another Miranda, or merely something to erase the memory of My Family, the eponymous Mancunians are proving a tad underwhelming.

If reality television has taught us anything, it's that the stuff people say in real life is funnier than anything script writers can dream up. This new entry to the family sitcom stable nods briefly in the direction of real life, but then takes all its dialogue from 'The Big Sitcom Book Of Unlikely Conversation'.

It's a pity - despite that niggle this is shaping up to be a decent half-hour, with Caroline and Liam (Niky Wardley and Will Mellor) competing this week to see who's the best parent.

How to be... a sitcom parent

Want to star in a rubbishy sitcom? Then get a zany family with horrible kids and give off exasperated vibes.

Filming In With The Flynns

We asked Jamie Glazebrook, Executive Producer of In With The Flynns, how the show was filmed.

I was somewhat dreading having to watch this, fearing it was going to be something akin to Life of Riley and other unfunny nonsense. But while In With the Flynns is not the funniest sitcom ever made, it does have its moments.

The first thing which strikes the viewer is the way the show is filmed. While this show was made in front of a studio audience, the filming looks much more realistic than a programme like Life of Riley or My Family. When you first see it, it doesn't feel quite right, but you soon get used to it.

As a pre-watershed TV sitcom there is very little in the way of offensive material. The closest to anything really disgusting was one of the sons in the family admitting to eating a pasty from a bin, which for me was one of the best bits, as well as admitting he got free soup from people who were serving it to the homeless.

Other decent comic moments included the eldest member of the family, Jim (Warren Clarke), going on a date with a woman he met in a car boot sale - but still making the woman pay £1.50 for a scart lead.

However, for me the best and worst moments were the flashbacks. This was an interesting comedic device, synonymous with In With the Flynns writers like Daniel Peak (who also employs similar cutaways in Mongrels). The best comic moment was a bit of slapstick involving an eyebrow piercing. The worst, however, was when the other son, who was being bullied, walked into a lamppost - which was clearly fake.

In With the Flynns isn't going to set the comic world alight, and many critics will be rallying against it, but in terms of pre-watershed sitcoms, it isn't the worst show in recent years.

In an attempt not to appear as irredeemably middle-class as everyone knows it to be, the BBC has set its latest family sitcom, In With the Flynns, among the proletarian masses of Manchester. But the socially downward setting can't disguise the rather tired and traditional format. It is still mum, dad, rebellious teenager, lovable scamps and eccentric relatives exchanging banter in contrived situations, to the accompaniment of inexplicably hysterical canned laughter.

However, the banter isn't bad, there is a definite warmth between the characters and Craig Parkinson shows great scene-stealing potential as dissolute Uncle Tommy.