Jason Cook

Radio Times review

If you sat down in front of BBC2's new sitcom Hebburn (Thursdays) wanting to be annoyed by another portrayal of common people as naïve oddballs, it didn't completely let you down. Fresh Meat star Kimberley Nixon was Sarah, the new wife of Jack (Chris Ramsey), who'd left the north-east to become a journalist but was now back to introduce his bride. His family cheerily struggled to cope with Sarah being posh, Jewish (Jack's mum threw their bacon in the bin and turned baps into bagels with an apple corer) and southern (her parents live in York).

Basically it was an extended version of the scene in The Royle Family where Anthony brings home Emma the vegetarian, and Nanna asks, "Can she have wafer-thin ham?" But what the Hebburn lot also share with the Royles is feeling warm and real. Jason Cook's script was particularly thoughtful when drawing Jack's parents, and was backed by a double casting coup: the faultless Gina McKee in a rare comic role as the hysterically proud mum, and Jim Moir/Vic Reeves, as good here as he was in Eric & Ernie as a dad who took five minutes to emerge from the kitchen when the son he adores came home. He looked happiest when Jack cracked a bad joke that could have been one of his.

Cook hasn't smashed any paradigms - Hebburn's first episode built predictably, if skilfully, to a standard sitcom finale - but he's writing about his own home town, with love. The people and relationships weren't common, but universal.

Write about what you know is the first advice you get at Creative Writing class and here comedian Jason Cook has followed it to the letter - he's penned a sitcom set in his North East hometown. Hebburn (the sitcom, not the town) is bawdy and sweet by turn, with Gina McKee and Jim Moir as parents taken aback when son Jack, who's fled for the bright lights of Manchester, returns with a big surprise on his arm.

Jason Cook has written this likeable sitcom inspired by his own upbringing in the north east of England. It is set in the real-life town of the title and pitches somewhere between The Royle Family and Rab C Nesbitt. We're talking bawdy but warm: salt-of-the-earth eccentrics, caricatures of family life and a good dose of smut.

Our young hero Jack escaped Hebburn to work as a journalist in Manchester; when he returns it is to introduce his family to Sarah, a PhD student he married in Las Vegas. "Hebburn's where dreams come to die," he warns Sarah as they arrive. Even where the comedy feels broad (when Jack's mum learns that Sarah is Jewish she panics and cuts holes in buns with an apple corer to make bagels) it comes off, thanks to a strong cast that includes Gina McKee and an understated Jim Moir, aka Vic Reeves.

Gavin & Stacey has a lot to answer for: in its wake have trailed a slew of gentler, flabbier, less funny copycats. Jason Cook's Hebburn - named after the Newcastle suburb 'where dreams come to die' and this com comes to sit - is, on the surface, more of the same. There's culture clash (nice Jewish girl marries into rough northern family with collective heart of gold). Overbearing family (inappropriate dad, slutty sister, smothering mum). And flashes of a darker wit at work (a death at a pub, a fatalistic grandmother, a flurry of fine-tuned Jewish jokes).

Gina McKee is the pick of a solid cast, throwing everything (including her broadest Geordie accent) into her eager-to-please mother, and the climax is a well-mounted mess of vomit, corpses and spilt secrets. You'd struggle to call it ambitious - but it is undoubtedly funny.

Another month, another family-based sitcom, but at least this one has a whiff of authenticity having been written by Geordie stand-up Jason Cook, based on his own experiences growing up in the North East. The six-part series tells the story of the Pearsons, a working-class family from Hebburn, who "aren't common, you know". Jack (Chris Ramsey), the Pearsons' only son, has returned home from Manchester, and is hoping to break the news to his parents that he has married a middle-class Jewish girl called Sarah (Kimberley Nixon). Mum Pauline (Gina McKee) and dad Joe (Jim Moir aka Vic Reeves) aren't sure how to react, and begin using an apple core to hollow out bread buns to make "bagels". Vicki (Lisa McGrillis), Jack's sister, isn't afraid to speak her mind, but it's her brother's rough-around-the-edges ex-girlfriend Denise (Victoria Elliott) who looks set to be the most memorable character. The humour can feel a little leaden, but the awkwardness arising from class differences and the uncertainty about what it means to have a Jewish girl around the place is amusing: "I'm fine working on a Saturday," Pauline quips, "but I'm not sure Joe could deal with being circumvented."

Video: At the Hebburn premiere

Giggle Beats were given exclusive access to film and report on the night, nabbing some juicy interviews with executive producer Matt Tiller, Hebburn creator Jason Cook (Ramsey), comedian Steffen Peddie (Big Keith) and Curtis Appleby (Hutchy) amongst others. And with a little help from our friends at KYEO.TV, we'll be showing you all of our footage over the next week or so.

Despite a few moments when the comic timing isn't quite there as the cast beds in, standup Jason Cook's new sitcom, a kind of Tyne and Wear Royle Family, looks like a winner. The setup is that Jack (Chris Ramsey), now living in glitzy Manchester, visits his working-class folk with a middle-class, Jewish bride, Sarah (Kimberley Nixon), in tow. Trouble is, nobody else knows they're hitched. You know you're in safe hands from the moment mum Pauline (Gina McKee), wanting Sarah to feel at home, makes "bagels" by taking an apple corer to some bread rolls.

Video: Gina McKee and Kimberley Nixon on Hebburn

Gina McKee and Kimberley Nixon tell us about having fun on the Tyne with their new BBC comedy, Hebburn.

They also talk about working with comedians Jason Cook and Vic Reeves.

Hebburn is a fairly warm-hearted new sitcom written by stand-up comic Jason Cook. Set in the unremarkable town of Hebburn, South Tyneside, where Cook grew up, it revolves around a close-knit working-class family headed by Vic Reeves (billed under real name Jim Moir) and Gina McKee. He's affable and blokey, she's overbearingly well-meaning in the way sitcom mums almost always are.

Rounding out the brood are comedian Chris Ramsey - who looks like Stan Laurel moonlighting as a member of One Direction - as the prodigal son awkwardly introducing his "girlfriend" (Fresh Meat's Kimberley Nixon) to the family. But unbeknownst to them, the pair secretly wed in Vegas. Oh no! Apparently.

There's also a daffy gran prone to inappropriate outbursts, and a tart-with-a-heart sister. So no, it won't win any awards for originality (if indeed such awards existed). And that's Hebburn's problem: although it's packed with gags, they're mostly rather obvious and unremarkable. Cook - who also appears in a supporting role - can't resist all the usual cheap tracksuits and fake-tan jibes, and even throws a cheesy pub singer in for good measure. Tinged with pathos and black comedy, it's amiable enough, and nicely performed - especially by McKee, reminding us that she's capable of delivering much more than the frosty types she's usually cast as. But it isn't remotely distinctive or original.

The road to Hebburn

Jason Cook's had his fair share of sleepless nights thinking about BBC2 sitcom Hebburn. In the months before filming, he worked 14 hour days, seven days a week, for weeks on end, growing increasingly infatuated with how he would portray life for the Pearson family in one of the North East's less inviting towns.