Viewers were spoiled much like Beth’s dinner party for her son Ian’s anniversary with partner Gordon in the new series of Two Doors Down (BBC Two) on Monday.
Any one of Arabella Weir, Alex Norton, Doon Mackichan, Jonathan Watson, Kieran Hodgson or Jamie Quinn could keep us focused on a good scene.
But this understatedly joyous episode put them all in the pot together.
Creators Simon Carlyle and Gregor Sharp’s sitcom is the kind of fly-on-the-wall domestic affair which has been on the go since the days of The Good Life, and the droll, canned laughter-free spin is at least as old as The Royle Family.
Cast and script just keep giving
Yet all it takes is a good cast and a good script to make the work sing, and Two Doors Down has kept these elements perfectly intact, even five series in.
Beth (Weir) has chosen to make a nice veggie curry – not too spicy, mind – for Ian (Quinn), because Gordon’s (Hodgson) a vegetarian and he likes things mild.
Much like his own personality.
Her amiably gormless husband Eric (Norton) takes a phone call from his mate Colin (Watson), and before she can stop him, he’s allowed Colin and his wife Cathy (Mackichan) to invite themselves over for dinner.
Another intruder is neighbour Christine (Smith), here to investigate the source of her explosive stomach troubles – Beth’s kitchen, she believes, is the source.
The tone is pitch-perfect, the actors perfectly in charge of who and what their characters are.
Beth and Eric are well-meaning, but cast adrift by the tide of personalities around them; the straight actors to Watson and Mackichan’s pair, she with a swearily forthright mouth on her, he as blunt as a broken chisel.
Abused hospitality and Beth’s stodgy rice
It’s half an hour of abused hospitality and ruminations on ease of access to gay sex in the 21st Century.
Add a decision by committee on whether Ian should dump poor Gordon for not getting beaten up in the street to protect him later, and we’re all more satisfied than Beth’s stodgy rice would have left us.
Special mention also for Elaine C. Smith, who’s no stranger to Glaswegian sitcoms after her classic turn as Mary Doll in Rab C. Nesbitt.
Brash, shouty and violent in that role, Christine is the flip of the coin, so huskily dry and understated that her bleedingly funny contributions are almost subsonic.
Another old-stager of Scottish comedy with impressive range is Jonathan Watson, who also turned up recently in layers of prosthetic make-up as a Sontaran in Doctor Who: Flux (BBC One).
This short, multi-part series has satisfied so far with an intriguing, multi-location and -era plot, and good chemistry between Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, Mandip Gill’s Yasmin and new guy John Bishop’s Dan.
Dr Who finale couldn’t quite cut it
Sadly, the finale couldn’t keep all those intricately-sinning plates in the air.
While it rounded off all the background threads, including the Sontarans’ invasion and multiple subplots involving characters we’d only just met, the stuff we really cared about was conveniently dusted under the carpet for another day.
Like the Doctor’s lost memories, what lies outside the universe, who the villainous Swarm was and why he hated the Doctor, for example.
It was action-packed, but not exactly satisfying.
