Love And Marriage (2013)

Alison Steadman interview

Alison Steadman talks about her role in ITV comedy drama Love And Marriage.

Celia Imrie interview

At 60, the defiantly singular Celia Imrie is anything but the 'also-ran' her mother once called her.

Gavin & Stacey star Alison Steadman washes herself of eager-to-please Essex mum Pam to play a matriarch who's finally had enough of her family in Love and Marriage, ITV's latest star-packed drama.

When her husband fails to show support throughout her retirement and the death of her father, frustrated doormat Pauline Paradise (Steadman) breaks it to her adult kids - who include Ashley Jensen and Coronation Street star Graeme Hawley - that she's packing her bags and starting a new life. Also featuring Celia Imrie and Larry Lamb, Love and Marriage is at once funny and poignant, disheartening and upflifting. We'd say it's definitely worth a peek, even before the mini-Gavin & Stacey reunion.

ITV find themselves back on traditional territory with the cuddly comedy-drama Love And Marriage, in which - and steel yourselves here, because this sounds like an outright parody - Alison Steadman stars as a retired lollipop lady and matriarch called Pauline Paradise. The sort of whimsical confection where nary a scene goes by without chortling musical accompaniment, its "hook" is the device of having the various members of the extended Paradise clan speak directly to the audience from their sofas, much like those old Prudential adverts. Other than that it's nothing you haven't seen before: family strife presented as an ultimately positive cavalcade of blunders and hugs.

Alison Steadman: Life seems to stop at 35 in TV

Alison Steadman, who is back on our screens as a lollipop lady, has slammed the lack of TV roles for older people.