Radio Times review

Hilary Lyon's Baggage was one of my favourite radio sitcoms and I am delighted to report that she has improved on this in her new series. While billed as a comedy drama - and there are laughs to be had - the reason why this is such a breath of fresh air is that Lyon has not let easy gags stand in the way of psychological insight.

Set in an ultra-middle-class Edinburgh café, it's what's really going on in the hearts and minds of the four central characters that makes this so compelling.

Staggering stoically under the weight of their emotional baggage, Hilary Lyon's Edinburgh-based 40-something friends are back for a fourth series. At the end of series three, Fiona had died from breast cancer, leaving her ex-husband Roddy and best friend Caroline to co-parent her baby, April. A year later and this "strangely shaped, mad little family", augmented by April's birth father (and Church of Scotland minister) Nicholas, and Fiona's Alzheimer-afflicted mother Gladys, - oh, and a dog - set off to scatter Fiona's ashes at Ruth's lakeside cabin. It is all very postmodern yet strangely old-fashioned at the same time, as the stresses of family life bounce off the need for some love and romance. Chick radio at its best.