Review: Death On The Tyne, Christmas Gold

It was pretty brave of Gold to schedule this one-off film on primetime on a Saturday night in the run-up to Christmas. But then the channel had reason to be ambitious. Their previous all-star Agatha Christie spoof starring Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson, Murder on the Blackpool Express, was the highest-ever rating show on Gold. They will be hoping for the same here. And they might just get it.

Death On The Tyne preview

Gold is primarily a reruns channel, so it's no surprise that its big commission is slightly old-fashioned in feel.

Part autobiographical, part radio version of The Kumars at No 42, stand-up comic Nathan Caton deftly weaves lines from his routine around a glimpse into life at home with his mum, dad and, on occasions, grandma. The stand-up material covers familar ground - why do women talk so much more than men, yawn. But the mini-drama of life at home with the Catons is much more satisfying.

In this episode, his mum (Adjoa Andoh) has had enough of her ungrateful son and husband (Curtis Walker) and leaves them to fend for themselves. She moves in with Nathan's grandma (Mona Hammond), which would be all right if this foxy older woman was not trying to spend the night with the local pastor (Don Gilet). What could have been a slapstick farce has a refreshingly contemporary edge.

Katherine Parkinson (Mrs Pooter in Radio 4's new Classic Serial, wonderful in Channel 4's The IT Crowd) and Julian Rhind-Tutt (total star, even as the guest on Radio 3's Essential Classics) head a brilliant cast (Jan Francis, Peter Davison, Dave Lamb, Don Gilet) in this new comedy by Eddie Robson. It's about an English village, invaded for study purposes by aliens, the Geonin, who throw a heat cordon around it to stop anyone coming in or getting out. They'll soon learn about the Earthling inborn tendency to resistance.