More family drama, though here it's one of the incompetent protagonist types, with Josh Howie playing himself with a tweak to make him (hopefully) more useless than he is in real life. You may recall the first series ended with Monique (Pippa Evans)'s pregnancy and the birth of their kid (maybe? even I don't remember at this point) and this series now looks at the early days of Mordecai's life.
Each episode starts with Howie suffering some ludicrous event, and then flashing back to how he got there, with what is usually a slightly more rational series of mistakes than you might imagine. Thus far, he's been caught defending his opinion of domestic violence (mostly negative) and arguing about what a circumcised penis should look like (and what it should cost).
That first example is based on his and Monique's first encounter with their health visitor, a grumpy Kerry Godliman, and the fact Moredecai is having trouble "latching". No, that doesn't refer to a door. This ended up more awkward than I expected, as even though the framing is intended to set up Howie's comedy suggestions about DV as a simple useless chap slip-up, it is one of those topics that are probably on the danger list for comedy now. There's a whole philosophical debate about the limits about of comedy (and whether there even should be any) that I'm not having here, but it lead to elements feeling strained. That may or may not be fair to the show.
I can't fault the execution though, in that Howie is set up perfectly as the fool who is frequently put in his place. And that place is a hole, into which he's brought his own spade. The combination of his sotto voce pseudo-monologues and his shouty dialogue (with more or less everyone, I don't think he knows how to have an non-fraught conversation) combine to a very funny result. One of those I'll automatically listen to, even if the idea of kids is monstrous.
Tagged: Radio Comedy Cast Sitcom Family/Relationships