Vic Reeves

Hebburn is that rare thing, a good, warm, funny new sitcom. This is tempting fate, but it may remind you of another romcom about a young couple and their families. Yes, the sacred memory that is Gavin & Stacey. It has the same director for a start, and writer Jason Cook knows how to make characters big but believable.

This week, Pauline (Gina McKee) is still angry at Jack for getting married without telling her, while Joe (Jim Moir) has a plan to win her round. Look out for a lovely, understated sight gag involving a fist bump, and some vicious comedy in Dot's old people's home.

Vic Reeves interview

Vic Reeves has revealed filming new BBC2 sitcom Hebburn left him with a bizarre hangover - after he was forced to drink gallons of fake booze.

Although presented in an affectionate guise, the basic idea in Hebburn is that they're a bit dim in the north east. It starred Chris Ramsey and a highly cuffable haircut as Jack, a journalist returning to his hometown with his new wife, Sarah (Kimberley Nixon).

Hebburn, Jack told Sarah, is "where dreams come to die". That's not a bad proposition, comedy-wise, but unfortunately, Hebburn turned out on closer inspection to be the place where jokes go to die.

The one about Sarah's Jewishness sending the locals into a state of anxious cultural confusion took a particularly long and painful time to expire. It started with Jack's mum (Gina McKee) cutting holes in sandwich baps to serve them as bagels, and went on from there without going anywhere.

As Jack's father, Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) was a curiously detached presence, as though he had decided to keep very quiet in the conviction that no one would notice it was him. No doubt this was admirable self-restraint, but how much more entertaining things would have been if he had turned to his screen wife McKee during the bagel saga and in his biggest Big Night Out accent shouted: "You wouldn't let it lie!"

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.

Review: Borderline insulting but a very funny sitcom

Hebburn may well insult the residents of the real-life northern town, but this new sitcom, starring Gina McKee and Jim Moir, could win even them over with its unique charm.

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.

In new sitcom Hebburn (BBC2), young Jack returns to the family home after some time working away. He's brought new wife Sarah with him. They got married on the spur of the moment ... Hang on, this all sounds familiar. Yes, it's not dissimilar to that other new BBC sitcom Cuckoo. So Cuckoo has a girl bringing an American hippy back, and Jack's a boy, bringing a Jewish girl from York home to Hebburn on Tyneside (haway the lads).

But in both much of the humour centres on the families not seeing eye-to-eye on everything with the new arrivals. And again, it's fairly traditional family sitcom fare - neither brave nor original. Vic Reeves's presence (he's the dad) doesn't bring a touch of the surreal you might hope for from him. But it's not real either; these people don't behave or speak like real people, they behave and speak like a sitcom family.

Oh it's OK, I suppose. There are some decent performances. I like the way they make bagels, with a bread roll and an apple corer. I'm pretty sure that's the only time I actually laughed though. Hebburn Meh-burn.

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: 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.