Early Doors review

Full of geniality and honest humour, the stage incarnation is a real crowd-pleaser, guaranteed - with the aid of an unexpected musical finale - to send the audience home with an inner glow equivalent to a couple of large brandies. Doubles all round!

John Godber and Jane Thornton's comedy is about starting a new business. Hope (Suranne Jones) has just left her successful businessman husband and is sleeping on the spare air mattress of old school friend Jodie (Susan Cookson) while her divorce comes through. Jodie is a workaholic, Hope relies more on the wine bottle. Together they're starting a sandwich shop in East Yorkshire. Jodie knows every variety of bap, bun, loaf and stottie cake. Hope doesn't. No wonder they're nervous as they await the arrival of their first customer.

One woman's new comedy drama is another woman's invitation to fill her ears with quick-setting cement. I'm not going to reveal whether I'm currently wiping the tears from my happily strained eyes or sitting in a hospital emergency department, the reason being that my judgement on what makes a successful comedy was written off years ago. I saw a live performance by an act who went by the name of Little Britain and came back to Radio Times to tell everyone that I thought they were rubbish... This new sitcom is billed as "The Thelma and Louise of the sandwich world", with Suranne Jones as Hope and Susan Cookson as Jodie fulfilling those roles. Or should I say rolls, because 90 per cent of the jokes are bread-related.