Uncle

There's a touching pathos to the dark humour in this promising new comedy starring Nick Helm as heartbroken musician Andy.

A gnan's whisker away from killing himself, Andy makes a split-second decision to answer the phone - which lands him with a nephew he hardly knows, played with deadpan style by Elliot Spencer-Gillott.

As events send them spinning from footie pitch to gay bar, the pair forge a bond founded on mutual disinterest, blackmail, lies and... a semi-naked male dance troupe.

Radio Times review

It's the familiar buddy-comedy dynamic: two contrasting characters are reluctantly thrust together by circumstance. Initially, they can't stand each other, but as the frost thaws a semblance of a relationship starts to bloom. In this case it's slobby, boozy Andy (Nick Helm) and his sickly, smart-arse nephew Errol - the kind of kid who says things like "I hate cartoons, they give me a headache".

In this opener, Andy is suicidal after being dumped by his girlfriend, but it's hard to find sympathy for him as he blunders about lying through his teeth, hitting the bottle while driving and trying to repair his rather unconvincing relationship with his ex. It's not particularly subtle, but Errol is a great little character and the unexpected musical interludes provide a satisfying injection of quirkiness.

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TV preview: Uncle, BBC3

By the end of the first episode you can see that there is only one person who needs to do some growing up. And it isn't the 12-year-old.

It all sounds very About A Boy. A selfish, immature thirty-something gets landed with caring for an intelligent, far-too-grown-up-for-his-age 11-year-old. But Uncle - the fourth and final pilot in the 4Funnies strand - isn't an fluffy romcom, it's a smart, foul-mouthed sitcom with a brilliantly rude lead performance by stand-up circuit fave Nick Helm.

Andy (Helm) is a depressed, selfish, washed-up musician on the cusp of killing himself. But just before he can take the suicide plunge he receives a call from his single-mum sister Sam (Daisy Haggard), who begs the miserable layabout to pick up her son, Errol, from school and take him to football practice. Andy hates Errol and Errol hates Andy, but when a blackmailing truce is called, they begin to get along. If this all sounds a little predictable, it is. But Uncle's sharp script shows promise - it's packed with jokes and neatly balances dark gags and cutesy morals. And Helm's performance makes Andy a sweary, sarcastic, self-centred treat.

The latest 4Funnies pilot stars standup Nick Helm in his acting debut. Oliver Refson has written and directed Uncle, in which Helm plays Andy, an out-of-work musician charged with looking after his 11-year-old nephew Errol on the day he hoped to kill himself. Typical. The simple task of taking him to football practice, though, spirals into a bizarre adventure for the pair, involving a faked injury, a car crash and a trip to a gay club. Oh, and lies. Lots of lies.