Shameless

Review: Shameless, Channel 4

Familiar faces return for the final episode of Paul Abbott's long-running family drama.

After 11 series and all manner of twists and turns, it's time for Shameless to bow out in fittingly ridiculous fashion. Frank is home after a stint in prison, but Monica has a revelation which leads to the return of familiar faces including Fiona and Kev (Anne-Marie Duff and Dean Lennox Kelly), as Gallagher history threatens to repeat itself. Although Paul Abbott's stylised take on social deprivation lost its way a while back, this final snapshot of the Gallagher clan brings back memories of the show's glory days.

It's the end of an era tonight as we bid farewell to Frank Gallagher (David Threlfall) and the Chatsworth Estate he's roamed in assorted states of alcohol and drug-induced delirium for 11 seasons. It's been a shadow of its former glories of late but at its peak, Shameless was a truthful, bawdy and poignant portrait of working-class Britain struggling to survive through hard times. It also launched the careers of a raft of top acting talent and some its former stars, including Anne-Marie Duff, Dean Lennox Kelly, Elliott Tittensor and Jody Latham have returned to bow Shameless out with one helluva party!

Paul Abbott's rambunctious drama has been in steady decline for years now, so it's time it signed off. Ironically this cracking final episode highlights just where things went wrong: the moment the focus shifted from that clan of lovable rogues, the Gallaghers, to the more straightforwardly criminal Maguires.

But as Frank is released from jail - in for benefit fraud, naturally - and is confronted by an unwanted surprise from Monica, the stage is set for many of the old regulars to return as the Gallaghers feel the push and pull of fractious family relations.

Anne-Marie Duff, Dean Lennox Kelly, Elliott Tittensor, Jody Latham and Kelli Hollis all turn up, but really it's David Threlfall's show to steal. He's never been more nauseating, compelling and heartbreaking as the reprehensible Frank, struggling to face further family responsibility. Will the feckless waster ever appreciate anything more than a party?

It's appropriate that David Threlfall, the one constant of this unfeasibly durable show, steps behind the camera for its final-ever episode. And fun, too, to see Anne-Marie Duff's Fiona joining the likes of Lip (Jody Latham), Kev (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Carl (Elliott Tittensor) in one last doomed attempt to tame the wild beast that is Threlfall's Frank Gallagher.

The plot, for what it's worth, sees most of the Gallagher brood reuniting for funeral so farcical that Fiona determines to take the remaining kids back down south with her. Can Frank, just out of prison and with itchy feet, rediscover a modicum of interest in fatherhood? A couple of half-hearted jokes about Jesus and abortion show that the series hasn't entirely sacrificed its aggressive taboo-busting for cartoonish irrelevance. But this is a shabby, subdued finale to a show that once fizzed with vigour, invention and purpose.

Shameless - The final episode reviewed

It ended the only way that Shameless could. With a car on fire, a pub-load of punters and families partying, a police chase and the overwhelming message that even in the worst situations and with the worst people, there is always something holding us together. Family matters.

Goodbye to Shameless. What does it leave behind?

As the long-running television comedy comes to a close, David Herman wonders what its legacy will be. Will David Threlfall best be remembered as the feckless, drunken Frank Gallagher?

The lower-class heroes of the Chatsworth estate have been providing high-quality entertainment for more than nine years now, but it's finally time to wave farewell to the Gallaghers, the Maguires and the rest as Shameless airs its final episode.

Former cast members Anne-Marie Duff, Dean Lennox Kelly, Elliott Tittensor, Jody Latham and Kelli Hollis all make a reappearance for the Shameless curtain call, as iconic alcoholic Frank Gallagher ends his prison stint for benefit fraud and receives an unwanted surprise from Monica (Annabelle Apison).

We have reached the penultimate visit to the Chatsworth estate before the shutters clang into place for good. Frank, not wholly surprisingly, attempts flight rather than fight when a disgruntled ice-cream vendor turns up at St Mimi's school packing a little more than a dozen orange Calippos. The resultant siege turns out to provide a fireworks night-style sideshow for the locals, and leads to the re-emergence of a familiar face, enticed by the prospect of appearing to be a winningly supportive parent in front of the TV news crews.

Gallagher joie de vivre has no place in austerity UK

The fictional family were acclaimed when they hit our screens 10 years ago. As the final series ends, it's the right time to leave.