Mutual Friends

Mutual Friends, may not be a ratings hit but I'm enjoying the talents of the two stars - the brilliant Marc Warren and the scene-stealing Alexander Armstrong. It manages to be hilariously funny and quite deep and serious in places.

Before its first screening, critics were comparing it to ITV1's Cold Feet, but Mutual Friends does have its own engrossing style and the story is very different. Warren and Armstrong bounce off each other brilliantly while there's good support from an ensemble cast including Emily Joyce as Martin's boss and Sarah Alexander.

Being very easy to watch and surprisingly very funny, it's the kind of drama only us Brits could achieve with a good mix of proper drama and human, normal characters. The only possible flaw is that I've yet to warm to Keeley Hawes's character.

This curious drama with occasional laughs is still struggling to find its feet and its identity, something that isn't helped by its underwritten, shallow and irritating female characters. This isn't really their fault, because they have almost nothing to do except whine, cling or just generally be pointless and annoying.

Poor Sarah Alexander in particular is saddled with a deadly role as Liz, ex-girlfriend of tedious lothario Patrick (Alexander Armstrong). One minute she's quite sane and sensible, the next she's behaving like a halfwit. Things are still being kept together by Marc Warren as Martin, the hopeless cuckold whose desperate attempts to win back the affections of wife Jen (Keeley Hawes) keep hitting the rocks.

Comedy-dramas are notoriously tricky to pull off, because their success depends to a great extent on getting the tone right. If the tone isn't right, the elements of comedy and drama work against each other, making the drama unbelievable and the laughter artificial. Three episodes in, and Mutual Friends remains neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. That none of the characters is particularly sympathetic is by the by; the big problem is that it sets out to embrace big issues - suicide, unhappy marriages, freedom versus responsibilityand much more besides - which it handles with the kid gloves of light entertainment. The cast are so experienced and accomplished that they are able to sustain the entertainment, but it remains an unsatisfactory beast.