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After You've Gone. Image shows from L to R: Diana Neal (Celia Imrie), Molly Venables (Dani Harmer), Alex Venables (Ryan Sampson), Jimmy Venables (Nicholas Lyndhurst), Siobhan Casey (Amanda Abbington). Image credit: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

After You've Gone
After You've Gone. Image shows from L to R: Molly Venables (Dani Harmer), Jimmy Venables (Nicholas Lyndhurst), Alex Venables (Ryan Sampson), Diana Neal (Celia Imrie). Image credit: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

After You've Gone

When his ex-wife Ann joins an African disaster relief effort, Jimmy is left to care for their teenage children - with the help of his ex-mother-in-law

Genre:
Sitcom
Broadcast:
2007 - 2008  (BBC One)
Episodes:
25 (3 series)
Starring:
Nicholas Lyndhurst, Celia Imrie, Ryan Sampson, Dani Harmer, Amanda Abbington, Lee Oakes, Vincent Ebrahim
Writers:
Katie Douglas, Andrea Solomons, Dan Tetsell, Jon Brown, Paul Kerensa, Jim Armogida, Steve Armogida, Fred Barron, Ian Brown, James Hendrie
Production:
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
& Rude Boy Productions

Weekend dad Jimmy offers to move back into the marital home to look after his two teenagers when his ex-wife volunteers to tend victims of a natural disaster in Africa.

Unfortunately, Jimmy's patrician mother-in-law, Diana, views him as a walking, talking natural disaster so she virtually moves in to "help", which generally means undermining Jimmy whenever possible!

With a smart-talking daughter, Molly, who thinks she's already a woman, and a son, Alex, who occasionally dresses a bit too much like one, just how much of a challenge can adapting to fatherhood on a daily basis be?

Our Review: This sitcom achieved the rare feat of returning for a second season in the same year that it made its debut - a demonstration of how happy the BBC were with the show. However, things soon changed... the show was abruptly axed the following year, despite the fact that pre-production work on a fourth series had already begun.

No good excuse was given for why the show was cancelled, but we're lead to believe the new BBC1 controller (Jay Hunt) was not such a fan of the show as her predecessors and so she decided to give it the chop.

Audience reaction over the three series had been mixed, so perhaps After You've Gone wouldn't have gone on much longer anyway. However, in our view the production team should have at least been allowed to complete the 2009 series they'd been working on and thus give the show a more satisfying send off (instead things ended on the 2008 special, which was made when the team still thought the 2009 series was going ahead, and thus plots were not closed off).

Looking back, After You've Gone will probably be remembered as very much a mainstream, middle-of-the-road programme. It had plenty of 'casual' fans; its obvious and un-challenging jokes offering the kind of friendly, reassuring comfort which many - particularly families - looked for.

Unfortunately, this type of humour tends not to sit well with hardcore sitcom junkies, so it was never going to get great reviews. However it could still a fun way to spend a spare half-hour, and most did find a few laughs along the way.