Sophie Willan's semi-autobiographical show is a "triumph of writing and performance" that "beats anything the streaming giants can produce", said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph. Willan delivers "brilliant" social commentary "sugared" with "superb" writing as Alma Nuttall, the show's protagonist, who tackles sex work, "dodgy" boyfriends and chaotic family life.
The first instalment saw Alma leave her "frequently grim" job as an escort for a tour with a local theatre company, said Rachel Aroesti in The Guardian. Season two is here and Alma is back in Bolton, where her grandmother is holding her mother's schizophrenic boyfriend "semi-captive" and Alma has found herself "blacklisted" from the escort industry. Watching Alma struggle for her big break is "TV at its most beautiful, furious and hilarious" and "pretty much the perfect comedy". Watch on BBC iPlayer
"Daddy Issues" is "daft, honest, funny and tinged with bleakness", said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. Gemma, a hard-partying 24-year-old hairdresser is knocked up in a plane toilet and forced to move in with her estranged father, Malcom, making for a "very modern odd couple".
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As Gemma tries to "cope" with her pregnancy, "snare" a sugar daddy, pay the rent and heal her relationship with her father, Malcolm learns "not to mop up bin juice with his jacket", joins a boxing club "for depressed men", and tries dating. The BBC Three sitcom is jam-packed with oddball characters, each giving "stereotypes a twist". With "high jinks" in abundance, "Daddy Issues" is "a comedy for our times" and you will laugh", but "you might also cry". Watch on BBC iPlayer
As "The Royle Family" proved, there is comedy to be found at the heart of the most normal family. And so it is with the Jessops – the "calamity prone, Bedford-based, very average family" at the centre of the BBC's new cult sitcom, which has a "claustrophobic normalness", said The Independent's Nick Hilton.
Paul (Jim Howick of "Ghosts") is an out-of-work former Olympic archer, trying to find control in his life, while his wife Rachel (Katherine Parkinson) is "trapped in frustrated suburbia". Filmed through the eyes of teenage son Sam, who loves nothing more than catching his family out at their most ridiculous, we see a series of mishaps. The best of these include a pool filled with hair dye, a school prize-giving interrupted by an outbreak of piles, a salsa class descending into an all-you-can-eat buffet and a night-vision camera catching an accidental sex tape. It's "low stakes farce" in a show that is "deliberately unadventurous". But sometimes the biggest risk you can take in comedy is "none at all". Watch on BBC iPlayer
Only Murders in the Building
Only Murders in the Building | Season 4 Trailer | Hulu - YouTube
On paper, it's an unlikely cast for a comedy: a couple of comedians in their 70s, teamed up with a former Disney Channel child star, but there "aren't many things more enjoyable on TV than the sight of Steve Martin and Martin Short riffing with one another," said the Financial Times' Dan Einav.
In this fourth series of this Disney+ production, the intrepid trio of amateur sleuths (Selena Gomez completes the team) try to find out who would want to kill avuncular Charles-Haden Savage (Martin) after the former TV star's long-serving body double becomes the latest victim to meet their end at New York’s Upper West Side Arconia apartment block.
Their hit podcast means that death is their business. "We've been very lucky with people dying in our building, " says Savage. The plot is "well-crafted" and the characters "richly drawn". Watch on Disney+
"Nothing compares to a Kate Winslet HBO series," said Harper's Bazaar, with the Oscar winner following up her success from the "Mare of Easttown", with an altogether more comedic turn as the dictator of a fictional Central European autocracy on the brink of collapse. Created by "Succession" veteran Will Tracy, with a stellar cast that includes Hugh Grant, Martha Plimpton and Andrea Riseborough, this dark comedy tells the story of a year inside the walls of the palace of a modern regime as it begins to unravel. "We're more used to seeing Winslet play plucky, hard-bitten characters who must struggle with what life dumps upon them," said Empire, "so it's somewhat refreshing to see her unleash a much steelier, dangerous type upon a fictional world." Watch on Now TV
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Season 1 - Official Trailer | Prime Video - YouTube
Starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine – in place of Phoebe Waller-Bridge who dropped out due to "creative differences" – this TV remake of the 2005 film is a "subversive, seductive, slow burn", said Esquire. The eponymous couple are thrown together by a secretive spy agency and forced to live as a married couple carrying out missions around the world. It is "a great demonstration of the charm and intelligence that infuses the whole that they pivot from strangers to colleagues to lovers so seamlessly", said The Guardian, in what is ultimately a "fast, fun and witty" show. The way the eight-part series "wrestles with the idea of compatibility makes this feel like a show about dating first and spying second", said Vox, but it is also genuinely laugh out loud at times. It boasts the "sort of lived-in, daring jokes we need more of in television: not quippy, not a Succession-style insult, just funny", said Esquire. Watch now on Amazon Prime
The Curse
The Curse | Official Trailer | Paramount+ - YouTube
This is the sort of show that "makes you cringe so hard you hope to disappear into the void", said Mashable. The "surreal comedy" stars Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder, the "madman" behind "Nathan For You" and "The Rehearsal". The couple are attempting to get their "house-flipping series off the ground, only to be thwarted at every turn". It's a "tale of an HGTV show gone terribly wrong", which delves into "everything from the ethics of reality TV to gentrification to the tokenisation of Native Americans". There is "a fascinating method to this cringe-inducing madness". Watch on Paramount+
"Beef" is the "best show Netflix has had in recent memory", said Vox. This dark comedy follows two protagonists – played by Ali Wong and Steven Yeun – who meet in a "screeching episode of Southern California road rage". The chance encounter "changes their lives forever", as the characters embark on "an escalating war of terror" against one another. It is "anxiety-inducing", "gripping" and "commanding" – and the pair's story is seen through to a "perfect, satisfying end". Watch on Netflix
This "textured and inviting romantic comedy" is a "real find", said The Times. Two "slightly daft" people, Ashley and Gordon, meet when Gordon – "distracted after Ashley flashed him her breast as a reward for giving her right of way on the road" – hits a dog. The pair then have to look after the animal, who they name Colin from Accounts. The show is "charming", and "soars thanks to the chemistry between the leading pair", played by husband and wife duo Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall, who also co-wrote and directed the show. Watch on BBC iPlayer
British TV has been "crying out for comedy like this", said Radio Times drama writer Morgan Cormack. The BBC has "a comedy gem" in this six-part series by Adjani Salmon, who also stars as lead character Kwabena, a "hopeful filmmaker" who is "pulling out" the stops to get his first movie made. "The laughs" are balanced with "prevalent conversations and everyday explorations about what it means to be Black in Britain" in a way "other comedies can only learn from", said Cormack. "Dreaming Whilst Black" is a series that "won't be forgotten anytime soon". Watch on BBC iPlayer
Jury Duty
Jury Duty - Official Trailer | Prime Video - YouTube
"Jury Duty'' is a "prank reality show" about "that most dreaded of civic duties", said Time Out. An "average Joe" called Ronald Gladden is one of 12 jurors being filmed as part of a documentary about the American justice system – or so he thinks, said Mashable. The other 11 people he finds himself sequestered in an LA hotel with are actors – so is the judge, the lawyers and the bailiff, who are all "improvising to see how he'll react". The outcome is "winsomely heartwarming", and Gladden's "accepting nature" makes the show "into something more than even the producers anticipated – and ends up all the funnier for it". Watch on Amazon Prime
Everyone Else Burns
Desperately Trying To Get PROMOTED Within Your CHURCH | Everyone Else Burns | Channel 4 Comedy - YouTube
A "family of worshippers" join an "overzealous Christian doomsday sect" in this six-part comedy, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. "Inadequate control freak" David (played by Simon Bird with "a distracting pudding bowl haircut") is "a kind of Captain Mainwaring of evangelism" who's wont to getting his family "out of bed for apocalypse practice". But "it's not a comedy going for cheap laughs about Christianity", said The Telegraph. "It's a great premise", the characters are "well-written" and "every line has a comic payoff". Watch on Channel 4
Shrinking
Shrinking — Official Trailer | Apple TV+ - YouTube
At its heart, "Shrinking" is a "family story", said NPR. It follows a recently widowed therapist and the life of his teenage daughter, as they "reconfigure their relationship in a new way, shaped by his grief and hers". It's an "ensemble comedy-drama" with a "genuinely stupendous cast" – including Harrison Ford, who takes his performance to "a whole new comic gear". This show is "a bright spot in a very crowded landscape". Watch on Apple TV+
For "anyone who sat through the sweet, colour-saturated" Disney+ musical "Encanto" and "felt like it could've done with a few more jokes about hookups and Hitler", "Extraordinary" is a "must-watch", said the Financial Times. This eight-part series is "a breezy, London-set quarter-life crisis sitcom that doubles as an offbeat send-up of superhero stories". Viewers can look forward to "a fairly consistent stream of playful gags, irony-laced humour and some giddy (and overly insistent) bawdiness". Watch on Disney+
This Amazon series is a "feel-good, coming-of-age comedy for the whole family", said Rolling Stone. Rafa Gonzales lives with his mother, Drea, in a "modest ranch house" in San Antonio – with "all five of Drea's loud, opinionated, intrusive, knucklehead brothers". It is both "a sweet and charming coming-of-age story" focused on Rafa, and a "broad and silly comedy about the antics of his five uncles". True, "it's nothing you haven't seen before" but it is "done with enough specificity to feel lived-in". "Primo" is an "exceedingly likeable" show. Watch on Amazon Prime
In "When Harry Met Sally", Nora Ephron posed the question of whether men and women can "really be just friends", said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. The "mighty" writer's answer was "in essence, no" – but the Apple TV+ series "Platonic" "posits that the answer these days might be yes". "Bad Neighbours" co-stars Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen reunite in this 10-episode series about two former best friends who "fall back into their old ways" five years after their fallout. The leads are afforded "equally meaty, equally comic" roles and their chemistry is "a joy to watch". Watch on Apple TV+
The Change
Pushed to the Edge by Her Own Family | The Change | Channel 4 Comedy - YouTube
Bridget Christie plays Linda, a wife and mum who embarks on a "mid-life road-trip" to "rediscover herself" in the Forest of Dean – but on arrival, it's "not quite the bucolic ideal she had in mind", said Chortle. A "musing menagerie of weirdos" awaits her, and there's an "otherworldly sheen" to the events that unfold. "The Change" encompasses a seemingly "unlikely" combination of "light-touch social commentary and a magical realism drawn from English folk mythology" that "works well". It "proves itself repeatedly funny in ways large and small". Watch on Channel 4
The Big Door Prize
The Big Door Prize — Official Trailer | Apple TV+ - YouTube
This "thought-provoking" comedy has the "Ted Lasso" formula of "saccharine sentiment offset by salty humour", said The Telegraph. The story takes place in "smalltown America", with the "mysterious arrival of an arcade machine at the local store". The Morpho machine can tell you your "life potential" – and "unsurprisingly" proves "an instant smash hit with locals", who suddenly find "purpose" in their "humdrum lives". This "thought experiment" stars Chris O'Dowd, and the performances "across the board are superb". Watch on Apple TV+
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Julia O'Driscoll is the engagement editor. She covers UK and world news, as well as writing lifestyle and travel features. She regularly appears on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast, and hosted The Week's short-form documentary podcast, “The Overview”. Julia was previously the content and social media editor at sustainability consultancy Eco-Age, where she interviewed prominent voices in sustainable fashion and climate movements. She has a master's in liberal arts from Bristol University, and spent a year studying at Charles University in Prague.
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