ITV axes Deep Fake Neighbour Wars and Significant Other

ITV has axed two hit comedy shows in its latest round of programme culls.

Is comedy back in the ITV building?

ITV has a tricky relationship with sitcoms, doesn't it? 

Over on ITVX, the bittersweet new six-part comedy Significant Other (adapted from an Israeli series of the same name) stars Katherine Parkinson and Youssef Kerkour as two lost souls who come together under strange, stressful circumstances. She bangs on his door, thinking she's having a heart attack. He, bereft at his marital breakup, has taken an overdose.

There's an intriguing, meandering pace and ambience to the show. While she's emotionally withdrawn, he's self-absorbed, and neither of them seems to care much if anyone likes them. The main themes are loneliness, awkwardness and panic at failing at relationships and life. Two episodes in, it's short on jokes (the comedy lies in presumptions and disappointments), but the characterisation is layering, getting deeper and stranger all the time, and I'm minded to keep watching.

Two lives collide again in Significant Other (ITVX), a comedy which begins with a heart attack and an attempted suicide. Anna (Katherine Parkinson) and Sam (Youssef Kerkour) are neighbours who don't seem to have met so presumably this is London. Bumbling into each other in the nick of time, they commence a ... well, you'll have to watch. And you should.

Review: Significant Other, ITVX

Direction, in fact, is what Significant Other lacks. I have no issues about the lack of jokes. In fact I quite admired how long the programme ran without any dialogue at all.

Significant Other review

It's time to bring back British sitcoms that actually make you laugh.

Significant Other, ITVX, review

Katherine Parkinson is the only good thing about this forgettable romcom.

Significant Other review

By starting with an overdose attempt and a heart attack, Significant Other couldn't signal its intentions to be an unconventional romcom any more clearly.

Significant Other review

The script feels like a first draft, the male lead is irredeemably selfish and the characters' actions are inexplicable. Katherine Parkinson's new show is cold, jarring and misanthropic.