Daddy Issues review: This new sitcom starring Aimee Lou Wood wrings comedy triumph from its characters' disasters
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As premises for a sitcom go, the one for new comedy Daddy Issues (BBC1, Fri, 9.30pm, all episodes on iPlayer) does not initially sound promising.
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Hide AdGemma, enjoying her carefree life in her mid-20s, has just discovered she's pregnant after a bunk-up in an aeroplane toilet, and faces the bleak prospect of the end of her no-harm-no-foul lifestyle.
“My mum's run off with her and my dad's savings, my sister's on remand and my flatmate's just moved out, so my life's a mess right now,” she tells her overworked GP.
Not only that, but her dad is struggling with divorce and living like a student in an appalling bedsit, and Gemma struggles to find both new pals and a steady boyfriend.
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Hide AdHardly sounds like a laugh riot, yet writer Danielle Ward and a terrific cast mine some great lines from the disaster zone of their lives.
Visiting her dad in his crummy room, Gemma's handed tea in a jam jar, rather than a cup.
“It's quite trendy, these days,” she tells dad Malcolm.
“Oh really? Is it trendy to pee in them as well?” asks Malcolm. “Don't worry, I've put an 'X' on that one so I don't mix them up.”
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Hide AdAimee Lou Wood, as Gemma, is the only one of this gallery of rogues and grotesques who has their life together, even as it seems to be falling apart, and she gradually rebuilds her dad, and her relationship with him, after Malcolm moves in to be her new flatmate.
Initially thrown into despair by his sudden change in circumstances, Malcolm (David Morrissey) has a desire to ingratiate himself with everyone, no matter how awful they are.
And in the case of former landlord, and 'best friend', Derek (David Fynn) they're very awful indeed.
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Hide AdDerek is also going through the trauma of divorce, which he's come out of with a bad case of anger that tips over into outright misogyny, and the paradoxical desire to cop off with any woman he sees.
He could be an uncomfortable character to be around, but Fynn invests him with such obvious desperation that you realise he's hiding deep wounds under the appalling behaviour.
And Gemma has his measure anyway, absolutely aware that his dating tips – which centre around 20-year-old dating advice manuals and close-up magic – are toxic to her dad's recovery.
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Hide AdMeanwhile, she has to deal with that sister on remand, Catherine (Sharon Rooney) – she tried to push her fiancé off a fire escape, apparently.
And she has to try to make new friends, which lead her to invite herself to the birthday party of the bully from her old school, which – of course – ends in catastrophe.
This all sounds like it's one of those new sitcoms which are all sit and no com, but Daddy Issues has all the signs of developing into a worthwhile watch.
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Hide AdSome of it relies on old comedy tropes – the mismatched partners, the misunderstandings, the culture clashes – but it's rooted in real life and the comedy comes naturally out of the dire circumstances the characters find themselves in.
But its biggest plus point is Aimee Lou Wood's Gemma. Looking younger than her 28 years, Gemma is seemingly an ingénue in a big bad world, but she is streetwise, confident and has a quick wit.
And her relationship with Morrissey's Malcolm has a lot of heart, even when she's berating him in the supermarket for thinking that “jacket potatoes are potatoes covered in leather”.
There have been more misses than hits when it comes to sitcoms in recent years, but Daddy Issues looks like being the mother of all hits.
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