Good figures for Cradle To Grave and Boy Meets Girl

BBC Two's new comedy block proved a success in the ratings last night.

Cradle To Grave, the 1970s-set comedy based on Danny Baker's memoirs Going To Sea In A Sieve attracted an impressive 2.2million viewers at 9pm.

The figure, recorded by overnights.tv, represented more than ten per cent of the total audience at the time – no doubt boosted by Peter Kay in the role of Danny's dad 'Spud' Baker.

And it represents a 40 per cent increase on the audience that slot attracted last week with The World's Busiest Railway 2015.

The show received mixed reviews, with The Daily Telegraph calling it 'savvy, up-to-the-minute comedy', but the Independent said it 'was about as funny as getting on the wrong side of the Richardsons', the notorious South London gang. The Daily Mail awarded it four stars praising the tales, but feared the script made them 'too condensed and glib' and described Kay's Cockney accent as 'George Formby doing a Sid James impression'.

Cradle To Grave was aired in a double bill with Boy Meets Girl, the first mainstream sitcom to feature a transgender character, at 9.30pm.

That show, starring Rebecca Root, Harry Hepple and Denise Welch, was seen by a respectable 1.5million people – or 7.6 per cent of the total audience.

It was less popular with critics, with The Independent saying: 'The acting, on the whole, and the scripts didn't really live up to the innovative promise of the series' and the Daily Telegraph branding it a 'demoralisingly traditional form of comedy'.

Here are Chortle's reviews of Cradle To Grave and Boy Meets Girl.

Published: 4 Sep 2015