Life Of Riley

Life of Riley: Danny Interview

To celebrate the return of Life of Riley (Wednesday, 20.30 on BBC One) we interviewed Danny... aka Taylor Fawcett.

Caroline Quentin interview

Actress Caroline Quentin has criticised the gender balance of lead TV roles for older stars - claiming men far outweigh women.

Caroline Quentin interview

Caroline Quentin has her hands full again as multi-tasking mum, stepmum and wife, Maddy Riley in the comedy, Life Of Riley. Here, the 51-year-old mum-of-two reveals more about filming the third series, and her passion for Mad Men...

I began watching Life of Riley and I thought, hello, I've been hijacked by a time­ lord and Tardised back 30 years. Doctor Who must have been ancient when this script was written, a family sitcom that went back to before Terry and June. It was as if the last generation had never happened. It must have been written by a TV re-enactment society. I watched in wonder as the familiar mumming and the leaden setup-punchline-reaction trudged across the screen like the ghost of Christmas specials past. It stars Caroline Quentin, who wears a look of resigned depression throughout. This may be character acting or it could be medication having a bad reaction to the script. Nobody comes out of this well. If you set the cast on fire, they wouldn't generate enough energy or warmth to roast a marshmallow. This may well be the dreariest inspiration-bereft thing on the box. It's a zombie sitcom, the dug-up, unfunny dead.

The comedy hell continued with Life of Riley, which feels like a parody of the kind of bland, mechanical, family sitcom they supposedly don't make anymore. It even has a hackneyed punning title in which the protagonist's name is inserted into an everyday phrase.

I don't know what depresses me most about this dire Caroline Quentin vehicle, the endless procession of arthritic gags (mother on telephone to stepson: "Danny it's Maddy... Maddy?... I'm married to your father, yes."), its healthy ratings, or the clinically treated laugh track. It's like being mocked by the cackles of the dead. At least Outnumbered is back soon to show how it should be done.

I quite like Life of Riley, Georgia Pritchett's returning sitcom about an extremely extended suburban family. There are some good jokes, well structured plotlines and solid performances all round. But for series three could the kids wear name tags, possibly colour co-ordinated according to family affiliation, because I still haven't worked out which is which.

Life of Riley Series 2 review

Inexplicably, Georgia Pritchett's laugh-free show rises from the dead. Anyone in search of a proper family comedy should try The Simpsons.

Only in an atmosphere in which originality is viewed as marginal or suspect could a series like Life of Riley (BBC1) be produced. It may seem unfair to pick out this harmless sitcom as an illustration of the failings of British comedy drama, but perhaps not quite as unfair as the decision to recommission another series.

Life of Riley is not the worst sitcom (a title for which competition is too fierce to contemplate), and it even featured one clever line - when his daughter asked him what he was doing drinking coffee at an Ikea-like warehouse, Neil Dudgeon (as Jim Riley) replied: 'Just wanted to see what our bookshelves look like when they're assembled.' The problem is that none of the cast, led by Caroline Quentin, is able to say the lines as if they mean them, because the lines - with that single exception - neither refer to a known reality nor create a new one. Instead, the dialogue is rooted in sitcomland, that dislocated place where everything is said for effect and nothing has any effect. Life of Riley is the anti-Glee, tired, predictable and pointless.

Was Life of Riley made to test varying levels of Alzheimer's? Beginning its second run, the "jokes" fitted distinct categories: things that were topical/funny two years ago (self-service checkouts); ten years ago (self-help books); only to dimwits (falling over during a trust exercise); or never (Caroline Quentin's mumsy character - woops! - making a chocolate cast of her hubby's hairy bum). Its laughter track should have said "Gah!" and "Eeeg!" - but instead rollicked along and even seemed to positively discriminate, the higher hilarity-count for Nana's gags about boiled eggs and tea only explainable by a BBC effort to counteract recent allegations of ageism. Big Top, The Persuasionists, now this: anyone with their BBC comedy glass understandably more than half empty had better go to Dave at 10.20pm tonight for emergency care - the excellent Psychoville is rerunning and proves that somewhere Aunty still has a live and kicking funnybone.

Inoffensive is the kind of word that gets attached to Life Of Riley (BBC1), the kind of sitcom that thinks it's still the 1980s and that jokes about harassed suburban parents being given the runaround by their cheeky/geeky/knowing children are absolutely hilarious.

But offensive is exactly what it is. At least the ruinously overrated Outnumbered (returning soon, you have been warned) boasts the odd surreal moment.

But Life Of Riley not only destroys any shred of fondness you might have nurtured for The Lightning Seeds - truly this is an abuse of a theme tune - it's so lazy it feels like you're watching an extended cornflakes advert.