Eric Chappell

Another thing you are not supposed to do on your own is laugh. That is the excuse for studio audiences, to gee-up the mumchance viewer. So I was quite disconcerted to find myself laughing heartily at Singles (Yorks) by Eric Chappell and Jean Warr. The ground is well todden, being on the route from Only Fools And Horses to Just Good Friends, but the writing is fresh and the cast very fancy.

It is the sort of programme where, as self-evidently nothing is happening up front, you start noticing what they have on the mantelpiece. The cable-swathed, cuckoo-ridden Cole seems to live inside a sort of china teapot, all rosebuds and alcoves, niches and, I shouldn't wonder, ingle nooks. A set designer's bitter impression of just the sort of house an estate agent would choose.