Review: Friday Night Dinner, C4

There is nothing particularly groundbreaking here. Just a lovely, well-observed, faintly farcical fast-moving storyline as one minor white lie - they claim Jackie's mother has died so that they can cancel dinner and turf Tony out - sends events spiralling out of control.

Robert Popper's superlatively silly comedy is peerless in the way it captures the everyday eccentricity of family life. In this fourth series opener, Goodman family patriarch Martin invites a friend over for dinner, to the rest of the family's dismay. What inevitably follows is a sequence of misunderstandings and backfiring schemes, punctuated - as ever - by umpteen infuriating visits from neighbour Jim.

This topical comedy show brings together young British comics, including Dane Baptiste, Ivo Graham, Rhys James, Ellie White and Jamie Demetriou. It feels like a scattershot ensemble, but makes slightly more sense when you learn this is being positioned as a reboot of The 11 O'Clock Show, the late-90s format that helped to shape the current comedy mainstream by employing everyone from Ricky Gervais to Sacha Baron Cohen, David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Charlie Brooker and Robert Popper.

CBS buys Friday Night Dinner as put pilot

CBS is looking to expand its footprint in the family comedy genre with Friday Night Dinner. Based on the Channel 4 series created by Robert Popper, the project, from Warner Bros. TV and 3 Arts Entertainment, has received a put pilot.

Radio Times review

"Try and find your mother some heroin." That's Martin's plea to his bambinos as Jackie starts to fray at the edges. It's the day of Grandma's wedding and nobody is looking forward to it, least of all Jackie, who still hopes her mum might come to her senses.

Given the levels of clattering farce the Goodman household can attain on a regular Friday, you'd think a wedding would cause things to go nuclear, but instead writer Robert Popper keeps things (relatively) relaxed and brings out the warmth that underlies the family madness. Even so, Martin's attempts to give his impression of a pimp are not to be missed.

The third series of Robert Popper's sitcom following a dysfunctional north London brood begins with a surprise for Jackie and Martin (Tamsin Greig and Paul Ritter), as elder son Adam (Simon Bird) brings a girl to dinner. Unfazed by Martin washing dog poo off his foot in the toilet, plucky Emma fits right in. Things soon turn sour, however, when Adam's texts are intercepted by eight-year-old neighbour Katie, who makes child's play of blackmail. As usual, FND expertly treads the line between relatable and reliably potty.

Radio Times review

Within minutes of the start, Robert Popper's sitcom has contrived to get eccentric dad Martin covered in ketchup, half naked and shaking hands with his son's new girlfriend while his foot is in a toilet bowl.

This kind of wince-making farce is what Popper is good at. The confines of a sitcom where the one setting is a Jewish suburban home and the time frame is limited to the meal of the title only serves to boost his powers of invention.

Martin (Paul Ritter) is a consistently awful but just-recognisable creation. "Has anyone in your family been murdered?" is his idea of small talk with Adam's girlfriend, but he later concludes, "That Emma's a smashing female." (She is beautifully played by Sophia Di Martino, barely recognisable from her Casualty days.)

Ordinarily the comedy revolves around Adam and his brother Johnny's sparring but here Adam manages to sabotage his date himself, with just a little help from an eight-year-old neighbour. The laughs are excruciating, but they're big and real.

After something of a hiatus (the last series screened in 2012) we're back at the North London home of the bickering Goodman family for more middle-class Jewish mayhem. Writer and producer Robert Popper's sitcom may have a modest canvas - it rarely strays beyond its four suburban walls and plot development is minimal - but the show packs plenty of colourful farce into its frantic half-hour slot.

The opener of tonight's third run is no exception, hinging on a premise rife with comic opportunity. Eldest son Adam (Simon Bird) is bringing his new girlfriend Emma (Sophia Di Martino) round for dinner. As expected Mum (Tamsin Greig) has an eye on marriage potential, brother Jonny (Tom Rosenthal) sets out to embarrass and Dad (Paul Ritter) makes no attempt to curb his eccentricities.

Whilst the family dynamics are sharply observed and pleasingly quirky, this is soft-centred, amiable stuff bolstered by some top-notch performances. Ritter, as ever, is superb as shamelessly shirtless Martin, imbuing the character's oddities with pathos. A witty Di Martino also stands out, sweetly unfazed by the chaotic clan she's been invited into.

One-liners are thin on the ground but Popper's real skill is in his structuring, pulling together the episode's separate comic strands into a satisfying, climactic whole. There's no breaking new ground here and a fourth series might stretch things too far, but for now the Goodmans are still worth spending part of your evening with.

Friday Night Dinner - Series 3. Done.

One year, one month and one day after starting writing series 3 of Friday Night Dinner, we've finally finished making the series. I'm not sure when it's on telly yet, but as soon as I know I'll let you know. Feel free to ask Channel 4 to hurry up and stick it on!

ShortList: Final five sitcom writers revealed

Last week, having ploughed through 2,136 scripts for our Sitcom Search competition, we whittled it down to 40. This week, our judging panel - which includes Friday Night Dinner creator Robert Popper - has cut it to five (we know we said it would be four, but the quality meant we added one extra).