Bucket
- TV sitcom
- BBC Four
- 2017
- 4 episodes (1 series)
BBC Four comedy series about a mother and daughter who go on a road trip to tick off the mother's bucket list. Stars Miriam Margolyes, Frog Stone and Stephanie Beacham.
Episode menu
Series 1, Episode 1
Further details
The irrepressible Mim celebrates turning 70 by writing a bucket list. Item one: dragging daughter Fran on the "mini break they never had".
The mother and daughter spend a tense weekend at Miniworld, a dated theme-park which Fran had been desperate to visit 30 years ago. When Fran tries to leave, Mim reveals she's dying. Fran tries to make the effort, but new starts and openness are easier said than done.
Broadcast details
- Date
- Thursday 13th April 2017
- Time
- 10pm
- Channel
- BBC Four
- Length
- 30 minutes
Repeats
Show past repeats
| Date | Time | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Friday 14th April 2017 | 3:05am | BBC4 |
Cast & crew
| Miriam Margolyes | Mim |
| Frog Stone | Fran |
| Stephanie Beacham | Pat |
| Catherine Steadman | Gemma |
| Christopher Middleton | Wally |
| Samantha Baines | Miranda |
| Tom Price | Dom |
| Cyril Nri | Mr Merdon (Voice) |
| Frog Stone | Writer |
| Barunka O'Shaughnessy | Script Editor |
| Rebecca Rycroft | Director |
| Katie Mavroleon | Producer |
| Judy Counihan | Executive Producer |
| Frog Stone | Associate Producer |
| Adam Bokey | Editor |
| Tina Sherifa Hicks | Production Designer |
| Jane Anderson | Casting Director |
| June Nevin | Costume Designer |
| Jeremy Hewson | Director of Photography |
| Lisa Kennedy | Make-up Designer |
| Jane Watkins | Composer |
| Helen Ostler | 1st Assistant Director |
| Alex Moody | Commissioning Editor |
Video
I'm dying!
Mim and Fran arrive at Miniworld, a tawdry theme park. Fran wants to go home but Mim wants to stay and do her bucket list.
Featuring: Frog Stone (Fran) & Miriam Margolyes (Mim).
Press
Forget Peter Kay. Car share with Miriam Margolyes
Two days after the return of Peter Kay's sitcom-with-seatbelts, Car Share, the BBC decides it's the perfect time to launch another on-the-road comedy starring a bickering couple stuck behind the wheel.
As a piece of scheduling incompetence, it's impressive. But I don't suppose Frog Stone, the writer and co-star of Bucket (BBC4), is applauding. She must feel like a Robin Reliant being bullied off the road by Peter Kay's juggernaut.
The real pity is that Bucket is a much funnier show. It has bawdy jokes, a proper plot and a mother-daughter relationship that isn't so much dysfunctional as dangerously unhinged.
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail, 14th April 2017Preview - Bucket
A sitcom starring Miriam Margolyes sounds like it should be recipe for success.
Ian Wolf, On The Box, 13th April 2017New comedy-drama, created by and starring Frog Stone, in which Fran (Stone) helps dying mum Mim (the irrepressible Miriam Margolyes) fulfil her bucket list via a road trip. This one relies heavily on Margolyes doing her sweetly outrageous thing ("Did I tell you about the time I fellated a smurf?" etc), which is fine, but there's a peculiar sort of roteness and sourness to it also, at least at this stage. Admirably honest, though, and possibly worth sticking with
Ali Catterall, The Guardian, 13th April 2017Bucket tries too hard to make us squirm
Miriam Margolyes plays Mim - a maddening, loud, eccentric old woman - in this new sitcom.
She's celebrating her 70th birthday (70 is the new 30, she insists) by working her way through a bucket list, and the first item is a holiday with her irritable daughter. Other plans include: "Kiss a frog on Lake Titicaca."
Mim is crude, and absolutely blind to everyone's discomfort as she gossips about sex and her daughter's masturbation habits.
Frog Stone plays Fran, her drab and weary daughter. Her only hope in life is that she'll quietly get the promotion she wants, but Mim barges in and is intent on forcing some colour and activity into her existence.
The comedy tries to make us cringe on poor Fran's behalf, but often goes too far and sounds like a grubby schoolboy wrote it, with lines such as "Would you rather dry hump Ann Widdecombe or rim Donald Trump?"
Julie McDowall, The National (Scotland), 13th April 2017Bucket: tenderness, fury, and lashings of gynaecology
You were entitled to feel confused by the opening credits to Bucket (BBC Four). It's a new sitcom which shares its name with a celebrated gargoyle from an old sitcom. Imagine if someone wrote a comedy called Mainwaring or Meldrew. And then there was the epigraph from T S Eliot, not commonly associated with ribtickling hilarity.
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph, 13th April 2017