Independent on Sunday
Babes without the wood
Weather forecasters at the BBC already have to cope with high pressure, yet The Independent reported last week that chief weatherman Bill Giles has, allegedly, been bullying them. But how do you bully weather forecasters? You can't threaten to send them to Coventry, because they will say that suits them down to the ground, pointing out that Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and parts of the East Midlands have been enjoying the driest November since records began, apart from a little patchy drizzle. Whatever, I can't believe it of cuddly old Giles. And Jerry Seinfeld, the patron saint of bachelorhood, is getting married! And ITV has come up with an engaging new sitcom! As they say, shocks come in three.
Seinfeld got all the publicity, but Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married too. This 16-part series is a Bridget Jonesy, Ally McBealy, Sex in the City-y kind of affair, featuring Sam Loggin as the eponymous single girl sharing a flat with two other single girls. Predictably, they are all attractive twentysomethings looking for romance. Or if they can't find romance, orgasms. It is also, therefore, a bit Babes In the Woody. It is the sitcom Babes in The Wood would have been, had Babes In the Wood been much, much better.
But Lucy Sullivan a sitcom? Certainly not in the conventional, and increasingly derogatory, sense of the word. Unusually, it is based on a book, by Marian Keyes. And there is no audience laughter, which is good, because we do not have to listen to people having mirth seizures when someone says "shag". It has been scheduled boldly, in batches of consecutive nights. And there is shade as well as light, for Lucy's Irish parents (Frances Tomelty and Niall Buggy) are unhappily married. A gloomy marriage can sometimes be a springboard for wonderful comedy - think Fawlty Towers, think One Foot in the Grave - but here it is used differently, to provide dramatic depth.
There are weaknesses. Some of the acting is a touch wooden, while Letitia Dean, playing the obligatory tarty flatmate, appears to be auditioning for the part of the young Diana Dors, right down to the 1950's speech patterns. Also, some of the dialogue is too New York by half. Here, a middle-aged middle manager would not say "You are so sacked." And Uxbridge-bred Lucy wouldn't muse that "Even the big guy in the sky had it in for me," not unless she had just been watching Ally McBeal.
But these are small gripes. Young Sam Loggin, in her first significant television role, is terrific. And David Joss Buckley - who, in another genuflection to America, is billed as lead writer - has a generally sure touch. What with Channel 4's Spaced and now this, flatshare comedy may no longer be the depression oxymoron that it once was.
In Lucy Sullivan, a suburban girl learns to live city ways. In Simon Nye's How Do You Want Me? (BBC2), a city boy learns to hate country ways.