Anne Reid interview

Anne Reid tells TV Choice more about the comic drama written by Sally Wainwright.

Stand-up comedian Justin Moorhouse has worked as a DJ on a local station and it really shows in this spot-on observational sitcom. It's like Alan Partridge with a sprinkling of self-awareness and the youthful cast are blessed with the presence of Anne Reid as Justin's borderline spiteful nan.

What is it about Portwenn that attracts so many batty people? Nearly everyone in the place lives on the fringes of eccentricity. And that's not another picturesque Cornish village. Tonight we meet Mrs Florence Dingly (played charmingly and lovingly by Anne Reid), who runs the local cat shelter and obviously takes more care of her moggies than she does of herself. Her run-ins with Doc Martin are a comic delight.

Meanwhile, Bert gets into trouble over an outstanding loan, Eleanor shirks her baby-minding duties - off-loading little James onto a local teenager in order to help Bert organise a sangria-laden Andalusian evening - and Martin, facing an emergency, has to perform an operation in his surgery.

Few events are considered too unlikely to make it into the storyline of Doc Martin. Thus this penultimate episode sees the kind folk of idyllic Port Wenn harassed by a pair of violent loan sharks who, not content with terrorising Bert Large (Ian McNeice) over an outstanding debt, also try to shake down poor old cat-sanctuary owner Florence Dingle (Anne Reid). Mind you, even that doesn't sound so far-fetched compared with tonight's claim by Louisa's mother Eleanor (Louise Jameson) that she once ran a successful restaurant out in Andalusia. Now that's truly absurd.

Following on from a successful pilot last year, Justin Moorhouse returns in this sitcom playing an alternative version of himself, as a Manchester radio DJ recovering from a messy divorce.

This was a rather enjoyable half-hour, which began and closed with Justin talking to his mother (Anne Reid), who was horrified about Justin bringing him ginger nuts rather than Duchy Originals, and who has an attraction towards men with moustaches, including Bob Carolgees and Adolf Hitler.

The main plot of the first episode was Justin having to attend a gathering of parents at a restaurant with his ex-wife Tanya (Sally Lindsay) to try and get their son into a Catholic school, while at the same time going on a date with new love interest Lisa (Katherine Kelly) in the same restaurant.

The main lynchpin of comedy in this episode was the headmaster of the Catholic school, an Irish priest who was very traditional in his views. For example, he's against divorce, so Justin and Tanya have to pretend to be married. Now, the other week I came across an article on The Guardian's website from a man complaining that comedians are lazy when making jokes about religion. In terms of this show - while it is a bit lazy for making the Catholic priest Irish - there was no mention of paedophilia at all, and only one mention of homophobia.

Also, speaking as someone who went to Catholic school, I know that most Catholic priests are decent, well meaning people. R.E. teachers, on the other hand, are despicable monsters who still give me nightmares, and speaking from my own experiences are not exactly fair and balanced when covering certain topics. (The day when the pro-life campaigners came to our class and presented a slide show featuring graphic pictures of aborted foetuses springs to mind). This has nothing really to do with reviewing this show; it's just something I've always wanted to get off my chest.

Anyway, getting back to the main point, I think that Everyone Quite Likes Justin is worthwhile and entertaining sitcom which fully deserves the series that it has been given. Let's see what Moorhouse has to offer us as the series progresses.

Anne Reid, Paul Copley and Justin Moorhouse star in this new four-part sitcom by Moorhouse and Jim Poyser. Justin Moorhouse, naturally, plays Justin the successful, famous and outwardly upbeat Manchester DJ whose real life reflects a greyer reality. His mother is cranky, old and in a home. His wife has left him, taking their eight-year-old son and setting the lawyers on him. So he's back on the market. And so is his house. That's why he's living in his father-in-law's spare bedroom in Bury. The studio audience laughs loud, long and often.

A terrific performance by Paula Wilcox is central to this amusing drama by Daniel Thurman that explores the dangers of having too much time on your hands. She plays Yvonne, whose world is thrown upside down when, aged 64, she loses her job. Until this cataclysmic moment Yvonne and her husband Neil (Philip Jackson) have drifted along in contented domesticity while he indulged his passion for birdwatching. But suddenly, Yvonne starts to see Neil's hobby as something more sinister; a reason to escape, a desperate cry for freedom - despite the protestations of her pragmatic friend Wendy (the peerless Anne Reid). There are some beautifully observed moments and tremendously witty dialogue that - very much in the vein of Alan Bennett - finds rich humour in the seemingly mundane.

Competitive instincts between the elderly epistlers reach a rollicking crescendo in tonight's season finale. Their exchanges go from crabby sideswipe to venomous barrage in the click of a send button. As Irene (Maureen Lipman) returns to Blighty, the misunderstandings stack up, and Vera (Anne Reid) considers legal action against her pen pal for slander and alienation of her daughter Karen's affections. Happily, all is forgotten in preparing for Karen's forthcoming wedding to posh vet St John, and even though they bicker over the buffet (fork-and-finger versus coq au vin sit-down), it's Irene who succinctly, and touchingly, sums up the ties that bind these combative curmudgeons.

Vera and Irene continue to air their frustrations with their horrifically ungrateful offspring and assorted male inadequates. But their laptop laments reveal that Vera (Anne Reid) is having way more fun than her pen-pal. After she and granddaughter Sabrina befriend an exuberant African neighbour on their council estate, Vera starts to dress like Precious Ramotswe from The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. But Irene (Maureen Lipman), stranded Down Under, is "back washing towelling nappies after a 30-year gap". Homesick and resorting to poetry, her recital of Oh, To Be in England is simultaneously ridiculous and heartbreaking. It's a touching moment that shows the series' strength in depth. But Vera staves off any sentimentality with an unexpected tribute to tripe.