Comedy drama following the roller coaster lives of the Gallagher family as they experience life on the edge. Head of the family, in name only, is dad Frank - feckless, self-pitying, feeble, selfish, charmless and an unemployed, alcoholic bully - a model father...

The Gallagher kids are raised by big sister Fiona since mum went AWOL and dad hit the bottle. The boys are Lip, a street-wise, gobby lad around town and Ian is actively gay and keeps his private life very private. Siblings Debbie and Carl plus baby Liam Gallagher round off the highly un-orthodox yet extremely tightly knit family.

From Series 3 Shameless expanded out to focus on a second family too. If there's one family you don't want to cross on the Chatsworth Estate, it's the Maguires. Paddy is the father of this most feared and respected family, and he has little time for Frank.

New Series 9: The series starts with a multi-agency swoop on the estate, when ruthless project consultant Carmen Kenaway and her toxic side kick Feeney hit on the estate, embarking on a long-term strategy to make the Chatsworth an urban wasteland. The Task Force (Operation New Start) call it house-keeping; the residents call it Occupation.

The Gallaghers (and half the estate) are evicted from their homes. But the Chatsworthians continue to be comrades-in-arms, socially irresponsible and outrageous in their everyday roller coaster lives.

New characters include feisty siblings Gloria and Dominic Meak. She's a hairdresser working out of her front room on the Chatsworth and he's a very lapsed Catholic priest on 'sabbatical' - they cause moral mayhem as well as bringing their own pretty damaged past to the estate. Then there's 21-year-old Ruby Hepburn - a post-lads' mag ball of trouble, a Maguire niece and a fiery Celt, joining the Maguire household. Not to mention the smiling face of Frank's new running mate Terry, a little terrapin, who lives in his pocket.

Our Review: One of Channel 4's most successful shows and it's longest-running comedy drama by quite some distance now (in fact, the programe is now so well established that it has its own purpose-built set).

Not everyone is a fan: some middle-class viewers have found it hard to get into the show as they can't relate to the characters or situations.

However, the show does have many fans who enjoy the mix of family drama and comedy served up in Shameless. The programme can certainly be commended for tackling taboos - for example, one of the main characters is working-class and gay, something rarely portrayed sensitively or accurately in comedy.