sitcom

Shown through the youngest son, Sam’s (Jude Collie) camcorder, Here We Go details the lives of the Jessop family, played by Jim Howick (Ghosts), Alison Steadman (Gavin and Stacey), Katherine Parkinson (IT Crowd), and headed and written by Tom Basden (After Life).

The all-star cast also includes Freya Parks (The School of Good and Evil), Jude Collie (Terminator – Dark Fate), Mica Ricketts (As Dead as it Gets), and Tori Allen-Martin (London Kills).

Series four will see Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) open the gatehouse for business as a humble bed and breakfast, in the hopes of making some money without the ghosts interfering as usual.

The sitcom comes from the creators and stars of Yonderland and Bill, Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond, who were also the original stars of Horrible Histories.

Take a Hike

Monday

BBC Two, 6.30pm

Take a Hike, a new series in which five hikers compete for the title of ultimate guide, could just as easily have been called Come Hike With Me. Each week sees a different hiker take the lead, judged by the others on their route, picnic, views and fun.

It’s been a year since we saw “geezer diva” Gary King (played by co-creator and co-writer Tom Davis) attempt to take over his father’s building business and stay a doting father and loving partner, all the while appointing himself as the central figure of Butterchurn Crescent.

Centred on an alpha male who lacks the alpha-ness the role requires, the layered sitcom spoke volumes about modern-day masculinity, the working class, new money and family dynamics.

Few TV shows are held responsible for blowing apart the genre they belong to, but that was the legacy of The Young Ones. The incendiary BBC Two sitcom redefined the parameters of comedy by making an embarrassment out of elements of the genteel English suburban sitcom, exemplified by The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles.

From now on, thanks to The Young Ones, sitcom could sit squarely at the heart of youth culture, while those tuxedoed comics who had built their routines on jokes about mothers-in-law found themselves beyond the pale.

I Hate You sees two twenty-somethings, Charlie (Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds) and Becca (Melissa Saint), navigate their complicated friendship in today’s complicated world.

The pair have the definition of a love-hate relationship, one minute revelling in their in-jokes, the next bickering deep into the night.

Perhaps because the two are opposites. Charlie’s an anxious misanthrope whose room is ‘shittery’, while Becca is a little too confident and impulsive, but whose room is spotless.

The documentary will reveal never-before-seen footage of rehearsals and what really occurred behind the scenes. 

Produced by Expectation, the special will see Dawn French and Richard Curtis partner talk about their favourite moments from the sitcom with writer Paul Mayhew-Archer, producer Jon Plowman and James Fleet, who played Hugo Horton, and guest stars such as Hugh Bonneville, Kylie and Joanna Lumley. 

Dawn French commented: “It was a total treat to revisit such a happy place and time for this documentary. Part of my heart is still, and forever will be in Dibley.”

Community

Epidemiology

S2 E6

Unsurprisingly, judging by its name, Epidemiology reads like a pandemic prophecy.

The annual Greendale Community College Halloween party is in full swing and the goers are feasting on the old military rations Dean Pelton bought at an army surplus store for the buffet. But soon a severe sickness starts to spread, leading the study group and Doctor Rich to wonder: is it just food poisoning, or something a lot spookier?

Wills (Hugh Skinner) will face a dilemma when Charles (Harry Enfield) and the older royals go on strike and Wills is pressured to join them.

Struggling to make a decision, Wills seeks advice from a portrait of Queen Victoria (Miriam Margolyes) who tries to help and guide him.

Charles and Camilla (Haydn Gwynne) make a reluctant trip to visit Carole (Julia Deakin) and Mike Middleton (Simon Day) along with Wills and Kate (Louise Ford), but fear for their lives when Charles believes he hears Mike threatening to chop of his and Camilla’s heads.

Starstruck follows Rose (Matafeo), a twenty-something millennial living in London struggling to juggle two dead-end jobs to make ends meet.

An awkward morning-after-the-night-before is made even worse when she discovers she has accidentally slept with a film star, setting in motion a series of complications she could never have imagined.

Matafeo is a comedian and actress who won the Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2018 for her solo show, Horndog.