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CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Dare I say it? This sitcom is even funnier without Two Doors Doon
Two Doors Down
Rating: *****
Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker — The Final
Rating: **
Not many sitcoms can survive the loss of a central character. Only Fools And Horses was a rare example — and the great 1980s U.S. bar comedy Cheers achieved it, twice.
Those shows are remarkable, because many fans argue the personnel changes left them better still. Buster Merryfield as Uncle Albert made Only Fools even richer, after the death of Lennard Pearce, who played Grandad.
And though Shelley Long was a delight as Diane in Cheers, and everyone loved Coach (Nicholas Colasanto), it’s Woody Harrelson and Kirstie Alley we all remember.
The departure of Doon Mackichan from Two Doors Down (BBC2) after nine years might seem to spell the end for the series. Her lairy, drunken, selfish monster of a suburban housewife, Cathy, worked like petrol on the script — sometimes fuelling laughs, sometimes setting everything ablaze.
The departure of Doon Mackichan from Two Doors Down (BBC2) after nine years might seem to spell the end for the series. But the charm of this sitcom is the way it takes the smallest variation on a theme and makes something unique from it
But the charm of this sitcom is the way it takes the smallest variation on a theme and makes something unique from it.
Each episode features the same cast of characters gathering in Eric and Beth’s front room — their gay son Ian and his boyfriend Gordon, plus coarse and caustic neighbour Christine. For Colin (Jonathan Watson) to turn up on his own, instead of trotting behind Cathy like a pug on a lead, is all that’s needed to set off a fresh fusillade of explosive one-liners.
Christine (Elaine C. Smith) is dying to know what’s happened: ‘I’m just asking as a friend. She’s away with somebody else or she’s just had enough?’
Cathy has run off with a timeshare salesman in Sharm el-Sheik. When Christine learns that’s in Egypt, she gives a knowing look to Ian and Gordon (Jamie Quinn and Kieran Hodgson). ‘Sun all year,’ she says, ‘although you two would have to pretend to be cousins.’
Colin is in pieces. Dinner for him is ‘a fried egg and half a bottle of Whyte & Mackay’, before he leaves his estranged wife a voicemail to tell her, for the third time that day, that he’s doing fine and he’ll never call her again.
It’s all scripted to perfection and performed with hypnotic rhythm as the characters swing constantly from world-weariness to sudden, gossipy excitement. Who’d have thought that Two Doors Down could become even funnier?
Unlike sitcoms, reality show competitions suffer when the dialogue is too scripted.
Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker (C4) is a painful example — most of host Mel Giedroyc’s comments sound like they were written by committee. So she was understandably pleased with her pun during the final — after eight weeks, she finally landed a joke that hadn’t been wedged in with a mallet and chisel.
As the judges inspected three home cocktail bars built by the finalists, Mel suggested they ought to be drinking cava. ‘That’s a good drink for a woodworker,’ she chortled, and waited for everyone to figure it out.
Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker (C4) is a painful example — most of host Mel Giedroyc’s comments sound like they were written by committee
The complex constructions, featuring shelves and acres of bar counters, took two full days. Timescales have been a problem for this series: a weekend is both too short and far too long.
When mistakes are made, we know it’s because the contestants are racing against impossible deadlines.
At the same time, it’s hard to feel the urgency when Mel intones: ‘Six hours in and the final big build is hotting up.’
I was left wondering who has a cocktail bar in their home these days. Del Boy was proud of his, but none of these designs would have fitted into that Peckham council flat.
There wouldn’t have been room for Uncle Albert’s armchair.
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