Mum

If Pauline pretending to look as though she is enjoying Joyce's Ulysses isn't enough to get you laughing, just wait until you see what else is in store as Stefan Golaszewski's exquisite comedy inches forwards. Everyone is hungover after a birthday party that saw Cathy fall asleep on Michael's shoulder. Will she ever live it down?

Behind the scenes: Mum, BBC2

After three series, the main characters in my sitcom have come to the end of their journey and - I hope - revealed a few truths about life along the way.

You couldn't really get much less dramatic than the essential smallness of Mum, in which, for the six-piece final series, the widowed Lesley Manville and her own batch (son, girlfriend, inept brother Derek, brother's dreadful snob girlfriend, love interest Michael, dead hubby's parents) have decamped to a mansion. Pauline, brother's dreadful snob GF, has paid for all via a divorce settlement to celebrate Derek's birthday in a "posh" rented mansion full of towels folded into swans.

Tender, foul, awkward, human, never less than hugely funny, this has been one of the delights in my job. To see the glee of an ensemble piece - as well as Manville, of course, and Peter Mullan as shy Michael - in this last incarnation. Creator Stefan Golaszewski has said Mum has probably run its course, and he's most likely right, but what an absence it will bring. The depth of talent was unveiled, and it was wholly right to condense this last series into one claustrophobic week; a week in which Pauline essentially admitted she was a bad person, and we remembered the very smallness of the nigglings that haunt our lives if they're allowed to.

The entire cast shone. Karl Johnson's grandpa Reg (his outrage at coming across a shampoo labelled "not tested on animals" was a particular joy); Sam Swainsbury as son Jason played a richly subtle balance of thick, kind and misguidedly worldly.

Mum works as drama just as much as comedy. The many moments when Jason and Michael are left alone in a room, a house, a garden, are utterly fraught: at every one of Michael's half-gambits at conversation, every silently insolent shrug from Jason, you will cringe and gently perspire at memories of your own awkwardnesses (taking slightly too long to wash a mug, or slightly too short a time to answer with a monosyllable).

Mum, Cathy, finally snaps, in her own, nice way. Rude to nobody, she simply saunters, champagne in its bucket and Michael's hand in hers, towards a long lovely lawn, her body language yelling a cheerful "fuck you all".

Mum, BBC Two, series 3 review

Welcome last hurrah for adult family sitcom.

Mum review

This looks like being a triumphant end to a marvellous comedy that will endure.

The third, and apparently final, series of the Bafta-nominated, Mike-Leigh-style comedy-drama commences with Cathy (Lesley Manville) arriving at Derek and Pauline's hideously nouveau-riche country gaff. Cue none-more-Brexity conversation from Reg: "If I discovered I was even a quarter Dutch, I'd completely erase myself."

Lesley Manville interview

Lesley Manville on laughs, love and saying goodbye.

Stefan Golaszewski explains why it is time to end Mum

The final series will wrap up the 'will they / won't they?' arc for Cathy and Michael, with her son Jason still quietly resentful of his mother's new relationship.

TV review: Mum, BBC2

In the third and final series of Mum, beautifully written and directed by Stefan Golaszewski, Cathy and co are well and truly out of their suburban comfort zone.

Mum may be a saint, but the music's an unholy racket

Try as I might, I've never warmed to Mum. As with all saints, it's hard to have much sympathy for anyone who invites the world to walk over her.