After ten minutes of this gormless show you'll feel as if you're caught up in a dreadful theme-park ride that hurls you through dank tunnels of cliché. You will be left queasy by the sweetly sickly premise: a small northern town's fight to save its rock factory, and by its warm-hearted northern stereotypes. In short, Sugartown makes Candy Cabs look like The Sopranos. As for the plot - you've seen it before. A northern lad made good in the south (Tom Ellis) returns to his smalltown home ("Have I come up north or back in time?" Ho ho ho) to open a casino that will destroy everything Sugartown stands for. His brother, a nice chap who is about to get wed (Shaun Dooley, of course) owns the rock factory, which is in financial trouble. By the time you get this far, you will have lost the will to live.

Not unlike the desolate northern seaside resort in which it is set, this new series's brand of whimsical no-hoper comedy has definitely seen better days. That said, its tale of a band of plucky nutters, has-beens and never-will-bes uniting to save their local sweet factory from the clutches of an evil property developer is not entirely without charm - mostly thanks to the appealing cast led by Sue Johnston, Tom Ellis, Miranda Raison and Shaun Dooley. All the more bizarre then that the BBC One's schedulers should want to strangle it at birth by placing it in a ludicrously late slot, especially when the best they had to offer earlier in the evening was yet another yawn-inducing Inspector George Gently repeat.

Sugartown: BBC seaside comedy drama

Shaun Dooley, Tom Ellis and Georgia King star in Sugartown, a three-part comedy drama due to start on BBC One on Sunday 24 July 2011.

Sue Johnston interview

Former Waking The Dead star Sue Johnston headlines the new three-part comedy Sugartown, which is set in a seaside town famed for its rock-making factory...