British Comedy Guide
Man Down. Dan (Greg Davies). Copyright: Avalon Television
Man Down

Man Down

  • TV sitcom
  • Channel 4
  • 2013 - 2017
  • 26 episodes (4 series)

Sitcom starring Greg Davies as Dan, a teacher with crushing character flaws. Also features Roisin Conaty, Mike Wozniak, Gwyneth Powell, Stephanie Cole, Jeany Spark and more.

  • JustWatch Streaming rank this week: 731

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Series 4, Episode 1

Man Down. Dan (Greg Davies). Copyright: Avalon Television
Dan has quit his much hated job as a teacher and is applying his unique work ethic to another, more earthy profession. With Aunt Nesta and his mum now in a retirement village "pissing my inheritance up a wall", Dan is on an increasingly desperate hunt find a new home for his soon-to-be family. Helped by Brian and Jo, can Dan finally grow up to become the man he hopes he can be...?

Preview clips

Broadcast details

Date
Wednesday 25th October 2017
Time
10pm
Channel
Channel 4
Length
30 minutes

Cast & crew

Cast
Greg Davies Dan
Roisin Conaty Jo
Mike Wozniak Brian
Gwyneth Powell Mum
Stephanie Cole Nesta
Jeany Spark Emma
Ashley McGuire Shakira
Isy Suttie Ally Clarke
Ruth Bratt Carol
Stella Gonet Mrs Lipsey
Michael Gould Mr Lipsey
Guest cast
Michael Cochrane Doctor Baxter
Chris James Mr Crumbs
Micky Cochrane Geordie
Eryl Maynard Woman in Queue
Stephen Morrison Farmer John
Maggie Service Jenny
Trevor Nelson Self
Dennis Taylor Self
Writing team
Greg Davies Writer
Greg Davies Story
Ed Gamble Story
Stephen Morrison Story
Mike Wozniak Story
Mike Wozniak Writer
Production team
Al Campbell Director
Jane Wallbank Producer
James Taylor Executive Producer
Richard Allen-Turner Executive Producer
Jon Thoday Executive Producer
Greg Davies Executive Producer
Mike Holliday Editor
Miranda Jones Production Designer
Julia Duff Casting Director
Marlene Lawlor Costume Designer
Greg Duffield Director of Photography
Lulu Hall Make-up Designer
Chris Egan Composer
Bob Bradley Composer
Trystan Francis Composer
Matthew Gallagher 1st Assistant Director

Videos

Demonstrating Childbirth

Dan gets a very messy guide to childbirth...

Featuring: Greg Davies (Dan), Roisin Conaty (Jo), Mike Wozniak (Brian) & Ashley McGuire (Shakira).

Series 4, Episode 1 bloopers

Some of the scenes cut out of the finished episode.

Featuring: Greg Davies (Dan).

Press

Man Down (C4), the sitcom starring and written by Greg Davies, is steeped in the history of TV comedy.

The trouble is, it tries to pay homage to every genre -- and the result is a slapdash jumble that can't decide where to earn its laughs.

Greg plays a useless slob of an ex-teacher called Dan, a 50-year-old who lives like a drunken student. It's a tribute to The Young Ones: in the first series, Rik Mayall played his dad.

But some of the jokes belong in Terry And June. Surveying the residents of his mother's retirement home, Dan sighed: 'They all moan about Marks & Spencer, but they won't buy their blouses anywhere else.'

Sometimes, Greg tries to ape Tony Hancock in his writing. One line, about having 'callouses the size of marrowfat peas', was a deliberate echo of Hancock's classic complaint: 'I've got toes like globe artichokes!'

Man Down needs to decide what sort of sitcom it really is. In fact, it needs to grow up a bit.

Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail, 26th October 2017

There is no trouble in Man Down (Channel 4), which is on series four already and still packing in the gags and the grotesques. Like Bounty Hunters, this sitcom is built around the comic persona of its creator-star, sarcastic ex-teacher Greg Davies. Only this man is kept down not merely by his own nincompoopery, but by the collective efforts of a support cast.

This episode features a cameo from Trevor Nelson; the woman in the cafe using a fry-up to educate Dan on the horrors of childbirth (harrowing yet unerringly accurate); and Mr Crumbs, a dungarees-clad giant who lives in lost property storage. As Jo says to a horrified Brian, by way of introduction: "He's one of my best friends! He once held his breath for an hour!" All these characters, however incidental, are fully realised and often gifted with the best (read: filthiest) lines.

Ellen E. Jones, The Guardian, 26th October 2017

The fourth season of a sitcom that's more likely than any other current show to provoke proper, hooting, tearful mirth. Greg Davies and his collaborators have an infectious love of imaginative profanity (this week, Stephanie Cole rolls out the phrase "venison bukkake" with some relish) and a delight in methodically creating big visual payoffs: the way two subplots conspire to produce a single glorious shot of Davies looking particularly absurd is a work of comedy art.

Jack Seale, The Guardian, 25th October 2017

Man Down, Channel 4, review: "Surrealist fun"

Comedian Greg Davies may have got a much later career start than Jack Whitehall but like him, seems to be making the most of his moment in the sun playing over-the-top idiots, although his are rather lower down the social scale.

Bernadette McNulty, i Newspaper, 25th October 2017

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