Motherland

Over the past few weeks I’ve watched nothing but comedy on the telly. This is because the BBC are celebrating the sitcom to mark 60 years since their first – Hancock’s Half Hour – appeared on the box all those years ago.

Out of the five new sitcom pilots the broadcaster aired, I’m going to talk about one in detail; before that, I’ll take you through the merits and failings of the others I've watched.

The Coopers Vs The Rest

This contemporary comedy is retrogressive in that its situation has been done many times before. The family sitcom has been a staple of the BBC over the years with 2point4 children, My Family and Outnumbered proving ratings hits. This one though has been updated slightly to reflect the changing face of families in Britain: where previous sitcoms featured white middle-class families, this centres on a mixed-race couple and their adopted children.

The sitcom reminded me a lot of my own failure in writing comedy. One of the things that stopped me from being a good stand-up was my preoccupation with punch-lines. A comedian that doesn’t concern themselves with punch-lines sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true that the best comics let character and situation drive their jokes rather than the other way round. The Coopers Vs The Rest is if anything too well written, making the words that come out of the characters mouths appear artificial and dishonest. Indeed so scripted is this comedy it feels like more like the children were adopted by Oscar Wilde and Mae West than Tess and Toby Cooper. It isn’t until the 2^nd half of the episode when the mother Tess picks up the wrong child from a party that the laughs truly come.

For me, The Coopers Vs The Rest was a textbook lesson in how character, not jokes, drive sitcoms.

Home From Home

This was another family sitcom that would fit more comfortably in BBC One than Two. Here, Johnny Vegas (Ideal) and Joanne Page (Gavin and Stacy) are a couple that relocate their family to the Lake District to seek a better way of life. However in escaping the rat race, Vegas’ Neil finds a new struggle: competing with the neighbours next door. The old lodge Neil’s family owns is at the bottom of the site, whereas the Dillons’ rarefied one sits at the top. Can anyone see a metaphor?

The class-clash is unremarkable, but cheerily easy-going, showcasing as it does Vegas’ and Page’s every(wo)man charm. To compare it to The Coopers, I would say the jokes aren’t as smart, yet their believability make for a better sitcom.

Our Ex-Wife

This pilot was penned by sometime Simpsons writer Julie Scully. Despite her pedigree in family sitcom, this is an altogether different breed. Jack and Sara are every bit the happy couple, apart from one thing: Jack’s ex-wife. Hilary is a thorn in Jack’s side and one that he is desperate to keep Sara from. Sara, a sweet-natured American pie, is naïve to villainy and demands to meet her. The ensuing Sunday Roast ends in an acid rain of taunts and insults between the divorced couple, making it a cautionary be careful what you wish for tale. I liked this one more than reviewers did, although I agree all the bad feeling is a little much to sustain a season.

We The Jury

I had huge hopes for this comedy because it is written by one of my favourite comics, James Acaster. I first saw James Acaster in a three-hander (3 acts doing 20 minutes) at Edinburgh in 2010. Since then he’s gone on to become the ‘bridesmaid of comedy,’ being nominated for the main Edinburgh award five times without securing the victory. He is undoubtedly one of the finest comedians of his generation, fashioning high-concept narrative out of life's minutiae.

In his 2015 show Represent Acaster distilled his time doing jury service into a dizzying hour of stand-up comedy. Just as Waller-Bridge did with Fleabag, he’s transposed elements of his stage show into the sitcom format. The episode begins with William securing his life-long dream of serving in a jury. From the way he talks about jury service – distinction, honour, justice – you get the sense that William sees himself and his jurors as knights of the round table, sacrificing their lives to uphold the values of the court.

The premise is great – there aren’t many courtroom comedies; the execution isn’t half bad either. Ed Easton excellently conveys William’s puppy dog enthusiasm, and there is terrific support from the excellent Diane Morgan (Philomena Cunk) and Oliver Maltman (Mike Leigh’s Another Year). If anything I would have liked the comedy to be more eccentric, as in its best moments it reads like Green Wing and in its worst, Bad Education. I don’t dislike Whitehall but Acaster is a far better writer; given the chance to grow a sitcom we could see something very special. 

Motherland

This was my favourite sitcom. All the other sitcoms are in a period of gestation, whereas this one has come out fully formed, a beautiful laughing baby if you will. The success of the pilot owes much to the experience of the people behind it: Graham Linehan , the Godfather of sitcom (Father Ted, IT Crowd, Black Books) has penned this with his wife, Helen, along with Sharon Horgan (Pulling, Dead Boss and Catastrophe) and her writing partner, Holly Walsh. With all those comedies between them, is it any wonder this is the best offering.

I’m not going to lie, I don’t know much of Linehan’s work – I’ve watched a few episodes of Father Ted and Black Books, but I’m no expert. Horgan, on the other hand, is the sitcom writer of the moment: the success of Catastrophe has catapulted her into American consciousness, so much so she is about to have her HBO comedy Divorce air in October. For me, Catastrophe is the best sitcom of the last five years, uproariously skewering modern romance with brilliantly filthy jokes. Its second series looked at the impact of children on a relationship and probably formed the inspiration for this pilot.

Motherland is a joy from its very opening scene. Julia, a mother who supposedly has it all, has to try and maintain a coherent work call whilst attending to her wailing backstreet progeny, at the same time as keeping her eyes on the road. With sleeping policeman and temporary traffic lights coming between her and her goal of getting the kids to registration on time, the school run feels less like a routine journey and more like a mental breakdown. On arriving she is surprised to see no one at the school, a member of staff enquires whether she forgot it was the school holidays. To admit her mistake would be to damn her as a woman who hasn’t got her shit together, instead she lies saying the kids are dressed for a back to school party and she’s just come to report bullying to the headmaster – in the world of Motherland making a false allegation against a child ‘tormentor’ is better than admitting you’re too tired to know one day from the next.

Realising she is saddled with her children for the day, Julia tries to find solace in the mothers at the local café. Unfortunately, these matriarchs are headed by Amanda, who as a full-time mum makes a job out of telling Julia how she admires working mums but could never put work before children. Although the women have outgrown their school uniforms, this is very much Mean Girl territory with ‘the plastics’ organising social gatherings away from the less popular mums. One such character is Liz, brilliantly played by Diana Morgan, who unlike Julia couldn’t give less out of a shit out of hanging with the ‘IT crowd.’

Liz and Julia

Unlike Julia, Liz is unburdened by the pressures of motherhood. Maybe her very working-classness stops her from seeing parenting as a competition. I might be being reductive, but does the target driven arena of white-collar work make the middle classes more likely to take that mindset into child-raising? In this comedy it certainly seems this way.

Whatever the class of the parent I’m full of admiration for them. Whether it’s doing your best to sustain your position as Queen Bee or trying to organise childcare, the whole thing seems bloody exhausting. I would like to be a parent one day, but for the meantime I’m just happy to watch it – with that in mind, Commissioning Editor could we have some more Motherland please? 

All of the comedies are on BBC iPlayer