Tamsin Greig

More toe-curling in suburbia as Robert Popper's delightfully daft sitcom comes to an end.

Tonight, Jackie has organised a surprise for son Adam: inviting her friend's daughter Tanya to the Goodman's Friday night meal and a spot of match-making.

The appearance of good china and odd ­background music should be a hint that something sinister is about to take place.

"Is that somebody playing the lute?" demands Adam, confused.

Adam and Tanya haven't seen each other since they used to take baths together as babies, so have a lot of catching up to do.

Needless to say, Adam would prefer to do this without his mother and deaf, parsley-eating father shouting ­encouragement.

This episode ends the series on a pinnacle of ­embarrassment.

But am I the only one who can't quite get their head around Tamsin Greig being cast as Simon Bird's mother?

If playing their real ages, she'd have been pregnant at 16. What would the neighbours say?

Last in the run of the sitcom about a Jewish suburban family. It's been low-key but likeable, each episode squirming with minor social embarrassments. Tonight, Mum (Tamsin Greig) invites a girl called Tanya over, in the hope she'll take a shine to Adam (Simon Bird), the elder of her sons. As always, the best lines come at the expense of Dad (Paul Ritter). Mum: "Jonny, don't leave your dad on his own with Tanya. He'll only start talking about Isaac Newton or somebody." Cut to Dad: "He also invented the first practical reflecting telescope..."

Tonight's Friday Night Dinner, chez the Goodmans, is cooked by hopeless dad (Paul Ritter) as mum (Tamsin Greig) is immobile after spraining an ankle. Of course, it's a disaster as the meat is rigid with overcooking and makes terrible noises when dad tries to carve. "Should meat squeak?" the family wonders aloud. Poor Adam - this is supposed to be his birthday treat, along with a coffee table book on "heroes of the SS", a thoughtful gift for a young Jewish boy from his dad. It's another gloriously silly episode of Robert Popper's utterly endearing sitcom, which strays into Curb Your Enthusiasm comedy of embarrassment territory when dad bumps into an old girlfriend, the brassy Sheila Bloom (Frances Barber). Or Bitchface, as she is ungallantly known. Sheila is obsessed with her Mercedes to the delight of her tormentors, who find new and inventive ways of sniggering at her - not behind her back, but right in front of her face. It's packed with minor pleasures, including mad neighbour Jim and his supernaturally calm dog, and a piece of farce involving grandma in unsuitable clothing.

I love this series and I love Mum and Dad Goodman (Tamsin Greig and Paul Ritter). When the "bambinos" turn up for dinner on this particular Friday night, dad - mildly deaf and obsessed with his aged copies of New Scientist - emerges from the garage clad in a vest, shorts and cut-off wellies. "Why are you dressed like that like a sex attacker?" wonders Adam (Simon Bird). What follows is the usual collision of family in-jokes, misunderstandings and general silliness. Dad has been ordered by mum to burn his beloved magazines, but he's mapped out a ruse designed to pull the wool over her eyes. Meanwhile Aunty Val (Tracy-Ann Oberman) is on her way round to show off her mother-of-the-bride dress. I am delighted to admit that I laughed immoderately all the way through; at the gag about the mobile stuck on speakerphone; at neighbour Jim (super-twitchy Mark Heap) and his supernatural fear of his perfectly timid dog. And at dad's Join The Dots Sex Book. Don't miss.

Another Friday night, and another borderline gruesome family dinner with the Goodmans. The hapless, girl-shy Adam (Simon Bird) faces yet another painful interrogation about "females", or girlfriends, from Dad (the magnificently weird Paul Ritter): "Don't call them females" Adam whines, "they're not corpses." Tonight batty granny visits and upsets Mum (Tamsin Greig), who's already feeling generally unappreciated, by dissing her new curtains. But the most sublimely stupid bit of the episode involves barmy neighbour Jim (Mark Heap) and his dog. This superb beast does the best drunk-acting I have ever seen on television when Jim takes him to the local pub, a ghastly hole called the Black Boy. Dogs shouldn't drink beer. Really, they shouldn't.

A family comedy like no other, Friday Night Dinner is well on its way to becoming the kind of small-scale Channel 4 hit that keeps the cognoscenti coming back year after year. The chemistry between Tamsin Greig, Simon Bird, Paul Ritter and Tom Rosenthal is terrific. Tonight's antics revolve around gin, bin bags and Mrs Goodman's efforts to improve the living room décor; it's astonishing how much comedy can be mined from a pair of pee-coloured curtains.

The latest sitcom from Friends co-creator David Crane stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig as a British couple who write a hit BBC TV show. They move to LA to recreate their sitcom for a US audience, but realise the studio execs have no intention of sticking to their original concept. Enter the great Matt LeBlanc (Friends' Joey), playing a caricature of himself, who is horribly miscast as the show's protagonist, much to Mangan and Greig's vexation. Frequent laugh-out-loud moments and a host of endearingly awful characters make this series feel like a very promising start, but Americanised one-liners fail to capitalise on Mangan and Greig's distinctly British delivery.

Friday Night Dinner is turning into a tiny treasure. It's not an eventful sitcom but my, it's a funny one, with streams of uncomplicated laughs. There's a scene in a car with a VERY LOUD stereo that left me helpless; I watched it three times before I had to be dragged away and sedated. Writer Robert Popper has nailed the in-jokes, the petty embarrassments and routine bits of silliness that make family life fun, and not in a broad, pantomime-hapless My Family kind of way. Friday Night Dinner is full of surprises and the cast work together seamlessly; Tamsin Greig as a good-hearted, slightly ditzy mum, Paul Ritter as a well-meaning, barmy dad and Simon Bird (yes, Will from The Inbetweeners) and Tom Rosenthal as their grown-up but daft sons. It's endearing, too; everyone loves each other, which is why they are so comfortable with embarrassments. Well, most embarrassments. Adam (Bird) isn't too keen on being quizzed in the downstairs loo by his dad about "females" (ie girlfriends). "Do you have to call them females? You're not a policeman."

Tamsin Greig: 'I always think I'll never work again'

A second Olivier awards nomination, a starring role in Episodes and now Friday Night Dinner. Tamsin Greig has never been busier.