Interview with hotel staff

Why is Sherrie Hewson "beyond thrilled", Tim Healy a lady and Jake Canuso in pain?

Tim Healy to appear in series two of Hebburn

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet star Tim Healy will make a cameo appearance in the series two opener of Hebburn.

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet convention: More details announced

Actors Tim Healy and Melanie Hill are the first guests to be confirmed for the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet convention in September.

The Spa stars the incomparable Rebecca Front as the long-suffering head of a health, beauty and fitness centre, where staff and clients alike prove a constant source of grief, inconvenience and aggravation. The writer and creator is Derren Litten, who hit comedy pay dirt with Benidorm, ITV's most successful sitcom in years. Cynics might say ITV's only successful sitcom in years.

Despite the involvement of Front and Litten, I still didn't expect much from The Spa. Possibly because the basic premise reminded me of the late and lamentable The Brittas Empire, but more likely because the show is being broadcast on Sky Living. In all my years of flicking up and down the endless array of channels on offer, I have never found reason to stop and dally at Sky Living, or even work out what it was there for.

Well, knock me down with a gym ball, but The Spa is rather splendid. The characters are fun, the storylines outrageous, and the script fearless and successful in its pursuit of big out-loud laughs.

Rebecca Front holds centre stage as Alison, former Leighton Buzzard slimmer of the decade, whose imperious management style comprises brutal insensitivity complemented by a total absence of tact. Front fends off scene-stealing turns from a talented cast, most notably Frances Barber as boozed-up best mate Ginny, Tim Healy as the handyman who is quite literally too big for his breeches and Litten himself - it's your show, mate, you cast yourself in it - as an overweight, wheelchair-bound fitness instructor.

Rebecca Front is almost unrecognisable as blonde health club manageress and "Leighton Buzzard's slimmer of the decade" Alison Crabbe. Cheryl Fergison (EastEnders' Ev) plays an affronted punter, Bergita (sounds like "big eater"), while Tim Healy is a well-endowed handyman barely contained by his shorts. And the ever-arch Frances Barber pops up as... well, her role isn't clear in this first episode; maybe next week.

So, a promising ensemble for a sitcom that reads like a retread of The Brittas Empire, is a tad short on laughs and perhaps needed more sessions on a cross trainer before public exposure. Still, The Spa is the brainchild of Derren Litten, creator of the heroically bawdy Benidorm, which I won't hear a word against, so it could well take off in coming weeks. And this time, Litten has put himself in the frame as an aerobics instructor in a wheelchair.

Benidorm writer Derren Litten's new comedy is set in a health club, an arena ripe for humour. And with Rebecca Front shining in the role of contemptuous spa manager Alison the series is more hit than miss. She wants to turn around the fortunes of the spa but is hampered by a wheelchair-bound aerobics instructor (Litten) and a handyman (Tim Healy) with a penchant for wearing "sex pest shorts".

Tim Healy: The Spa is as good as Benidorm

Benidorm actor Tim Healy reckons ITV will be kicking itself for missing out on new comedy The Spa.

Rebecca Front, er, fronts this new proper British Sky comedy about the gang of misfits and no-hopers running the titular health club. She plays blonde bitch-in-chief Alison Crabbe, the woman charged with sorting out botched beauty treatments, short short-wearing handymen with big penises and sadistic fitness instructors.

Cheryl Fergison, Niky Wardley and Tim Healy are among the ensemble cast of The Spa, which comes from actor and Benidorm creator Derren Litten. You may want to think about cancelling your chemical face peel after this.

One of the finest episodes of this series to date, scripted by Steve Pemberton. Led by a fearsome martinet of a coach, members of the British Olympic synchronised swimming team turn up at the hotel, with a fawning Joyce prepared to eject guests from the pool to accommodate them. Elegant they may be but, as Tim Healy's down-to-earth transvestite has it, they're "thrashing about like a bag of cats in a canal" beneath the surface. While it's not exactly Pinter, it's ITV fun at its best.

Cross-dresser Les (Tim Healy) offers guests who have lost their luggage "full access to my wardrobe of bikinis and summer dresses"... Saucy swinger Jacqueline has been smuggling contraband secreted, eye-wateringly, about her person... Dotty pensioner Noreen offers the gay hairdressers a threesome (it's not what they imagine)... and newcomer Trudy butts heads and breaks wind with abandon at the poolside... Yes, Derren Litten's shameless, sun-baked smutcom doesn't get any classier - and that's just the way I and around seven million other devotees love it.

Snooty new manager Joyce Temple Savage (Loose Women's Sherrie Hewson) is, however, determined to raise the tone. Experienced in the travel business ("I spent three years under "Richard Branson]"), she's tasked with upgrading the Solana into a four-star resort. Classical music drifting over the sun-loungers? That won't wash with this gobby lot.

No Steve Pemberton tonight, although he's back as Mick next week and will share writing duties on episodes later in the run. Buenas noches!