In My Skin review

Even when laying bare the bleak realities of teenage life in the wreckage of Britain's forgotten places, Kayleigh Llewellyn's five-part drama is filled with tenderness.

Radio Times review

The Frisky Fox is becoming to Pontyberry what the Queen Vic is to Walford. All human life is here, and anything of import happens within its walls. In this eventful episode the pub hosts a mayoral candidacy vote, an arranged marriage proposition, a Gamblers Anonymous meeting and a Star Trek-themed wake.

Writer Steve Speirs (the sadly absent Big Alan) even makes time for a love triangle for Jag and a get-together for Stella's returning ex, Rob. With further effortless comedy from Di Botcher as Aunty Brenda and a step-up in Strictly fever, it's an enjoyably breezy watch.

Radio Times review

Another year, another jam-packed Stella finale. And change is in the air. Michael has an interview for a job in London; the bailiffs are sent in to penniless Luke and Zoe's house and Big and Little Alan's café is forced to close. And if all that sounds miserable, it's not.

This, after all, is the day of Big Alan's fancy dress wedding to Celia, at once ludicrous and moving. And there's another effective deployment of a returning character, too: Stella's ex Rob (Mark Lewis Jones), just in time to sort out his wayward son Luke. Not that everyone's pleased to see him. "Well, look what the cat have dragged up from the sewer," as Aunty Brenda says (Di Botcher is once again hilarious).

It's an eisteddfod of feel-good, even if one particular turnaround in fortunes at the wedding is laughably unrealistic. But there is a little salt mixed in with the marzipan. Stella will return in 2016.

Radio Times review

The emotional fallout from Beyoncé-gate is still being felt by Stella and next-door neighbour Michael, but fortunately there are some welcome distractions. Celia's ex-husband Dan turns up, Ben plucks up the courage to talk to Lily (don't get too excited) and there's an inaugural training session for Pontyberry Ladies Football Team.

Stella is the TV equivalent of a comfort blanket, its rich valley of comic characters always consistent. A word now for one who often shines brightest: Aunty Brenda, played with effortless "whatsaname" by Di Botcher. Along with Ruth Jones's epicentral Stella, Brenda holds the little community together with malapropian glue.

Tricky times for the Pontyberry menfolk. The university ball is fast approaching for Sunil (Rory Girvan), which means he'll have to fend off his vampish fellow student Leah once and for all, and remember his wife and child at home.

Alan (Steve Speirs) has to think about his next move, with his job as a lollipop man coming to an end after "three years, man and boy" and his snotty ex-wife strutting around with gifts for Little Alan. Worst of all is the predicament that Dai (Owen Teale) finds himself in.

He's jobless and, in a strand that forms part of one of the funniest episodes Stella has yet produced, still unable to perform in the bedroom. Auntie Brenda (Di Botcher) comes to the rescue with some blue pills she picked up in Spain: "They'll turn a button mushroom into a stick of celery before you can say Heston Blumenthal."

Ruth Jones's charming and truthful Welsh comedy drama finds the heroine, Stella (Jones), out of sorts after recent revelations until Aunty Brenda (Di Botcher) arranges a job at the bap factory, although later there is an unpromising reunion with Rob (Mark Lewis Jones). Russell Grant makes an appearance at the opening of Nadine (Karen Paullada) and Karl's (Julian Lewis Jones) new salon and Emma (Catrin Stewart) stakes her claim for Sunil (Rory Girvan) at his student ball.

A third run of Ruth Jones's lovable series has already been commissioned. And as we return to Pontyberry for series two, Stella's still in a bit of a dilemma.

She's 42, a grandmother, pregnant and not sure if the baby belongs to toyboy Sean or her first love, Rob, who's working away in Canada.

Perhaps Stella could ask her straight-talking Aunty Brenda for advice. This new arrival (played by Di Botcher) arrives from Tenerife in a shocking pink raincoat and with an even more shocking tendency to speak her mind, greeting Stella with the words every woman loves to hear: "Oooh. Haven't you put on weight!"

The big ensemble cast have plenty to keep them busy. Sunil's parents are so proud as they wave him off to become a doctor, little realising what medical students get up to.

Dai is working in the funeral parlour and when he's not having kinky sessions with Paula, he's practising his elegant glide.

And even for lollipop man Alan, the world refuses to stand still. Or, as Aunty Brenda would put it: "Now there's a man who's aged!"