Profile: Hebburn creator Jason Cook

When Jason Cook was in the Merchant Navy, he used to write sketches for a friend back home in Newcastle. He'd pop them in a big brown envelope and ship them back to Tyneside, where his mate would perform them at The Hyena Comedy Club.

Hebburn's home to me

We asked local expert Chris to give us the lowdown on Hebburn and the surreal experience of having your home become the object of national scrutiny.

Preview: Hebburn - Episode 2

Of the episodes we've seen so far, Ghost Town is definitely the strongest.

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!"

Paddy Shennan's TV review: Hebburn (BBC2)

New sitcom Hebburn (BBC2, Thursday) was taking its time to warm up when, eight minutes in, the first killer line arrived. And, somehow, when I heard the mum, Pauline Pearson (Gina McKee), ask the question of her son's new wife, Sarah (Kimberley Nixon), I knew everything was going to be OK.

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.

BBC Two's new Thursday-night comedy Hebburn made a promising start. It's basically Shameless meets Gavin & Stacey meets The Royle Family, only set in Newcastle.

I'm not sure about the recurring theme of mouthy Geordie lasses having drunken confrontations in ladies' toilets, though. I can't recall hearing about that sort of thing ever happening in real life.

Welcome to Hebburn, pet

Throughout the day, micro-blogging site Twitter was swamped with news of locals hosting 'Hebburn parties' to celebrate the arrival of the North East sitcom, while some pubs in the area even broadcasted Hebburn for its punters. ... But what did you think?

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.