Man Down

Radio Times review

At first, Greg Davies' debut sitcom, about a teacher called Dan who is much less mature than any of his pupils, seemed like it would merely be very funny: Davies the disgusting, massively overgrown clown, larking about amid a cast of oddballs including Rik Mayall as Dan's bonkers dad. As the series went on, though, we began to see that the storylines, characters and relationships had been carefully constructed, so that at the point where most sitcoms start flagging, Man Down just got funnier and funnier. Davies says it took him six months' full-time work to write series one - the hard work paid off.

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We've seen Greg Davies play a teacher before, of course, and the workless, foul-mouthed truce struck between him and his flock here does smack a little of Jack Whitehall's Bad Education, but Man Down's shortcomings in originality are nulled by a relentless volley of gags, all at Davies's expense, and with many arriving courtesy of a brilliantly cast Rik Mayall as his sadistic prankster dad. Crude, silly and very funny.

Final dip, for now, into the pseudo-life of hulkish manchild Dan, still as incapable of learning from his mishaps as a bluebottle biffing into a windowpane. With chum Brian up for a business award, a desperate Dan blags an invite to impress indifferent ex-girlfriend Naomi, while at the school Dan wrestles with the aftermath of Space Mission. A festive special and second series beckon, both hopefully leaning more towards interaction between Dan and his family rather than the snoresome trope of Adult Swearing At Small Children.

It says a lot about this series that one of its characters is an uptight financial adviser, and he's an entirely likeable figure. Brian - as underplayed by Mike Wozniak - has been one of the joys of Man Down, as strait-laced and competent as our hero Dan is disaster-prone. His furious lecture to Dan about car insurance ("You set up a direct debit and you monitor it!") was a particular gem.

Tonight, Brian is off to the West Regional Small Business Awards and Dan is keen to tag along. For the first half of the episode we're drumming our fingers slightly as the ground is laid for what we know will be a royal humiliation of some kind. But the climax pulls off the trick of being utterly stupid and in some odd way almost moving.

Penultimate episode of Greg Davies's by-the-numbers debut comedy, in which he plays newly single, perennially chaotic drama teacher Dan. This week, he gets help from strait-laced buddy Brian while preparing for an unexpected date, and his dad offers him a scary insight into his own former love life. Despite a brilliant turn from Rik Mayall as Dan's father, the series has relied thus far on cheap, un-PC gags and surreal moments that don't quite reach the pandemonium of Davies's last project, Cuckoo.

Massive man-child Dan (Greg Davies) secures a date with the mother of one of the kids in his class during parents' evening. But he's so out of practice with the ladies he dragoons best mate Brian into going on a "mock date". Thanks to Dan's social tin-ear and pathological lack of charm, he has a meltdown in a Chinese restaurant that shouldn't be funny but it really is. In fact you could say that about every second of Man Down. It's puerile, silly, crude and offensive but it's so daft it's hard to resist even the twitch of a smile. And comedian Roisin Conaty is monstrously awful as Dan's brassy friend Jo, who sets up a gig for the mysterious "Mickey Two Face." Don't ask.

You may think you're not the sort of person who would laugh at a sitcom where there's a recurring joke about a character having a massive bum. Man Down will relieve you of that delusion. This week Dan (Greg Davies) gets to meet his moustachioed friend Brian's running guru, Dominic (guest star Ramon Tikaram). Dominic is very intense and masterful but also the owner of a vastly protruding backside, something Dan simply cannot ignore. Comedy doesn't get much more basic than big-bum jokes but Man Down adds such genuinely crazed oddness to the storyline, it becomes very funny.

Is Man Down's Brian the coolest character on TV?

The latest episode of Greg Davies's Channel 4 comedy featured an impassioned speech that puts actor Mike Wozniak up there with the likes of Jack Nicholson.