Series 2 of John Cleese sitcom starts filming

Sue Johnston has joined the cast of the John Cleese sitcom Hold the Sunset.

The Royle Family star  will play Joan, the ‘impossible’ sister of Alison Steadman’s character Edith.

She said: ‘I'm thrilled to be working with such a great cast of actors. Some are new friends and some are old friends - it is a joy to be joining them all.’

Shooting has just started on the second series of the BBC One comedy, written by Charles McKeown, who was Oscar nominated for co-writing Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

It picks up the story of the twilight years romance between Edith and Cleese’s character Phil. The couple plan to move abroad,  but Edith’s 50-year-old son Roger (Jason Watkins) has moved in and is stubbornly refusing to leave after his separation from wife Wendy (Rosie Cavaliero).

The cast also includes Joanna Scanlan, Anne Reid and Peter Egan, while Christian Brassington – who played Reverend Osborne 'Ossie' Whitworth in Poldark – is also joining series two, playing hopeless estate agent Percy.

Cleese said ‘I really enjoyed making the first series. It was great to be able to do so much sitting-down acting. I look forward to seeing our lovely cast again.’

When the first season launched in February this year, the first episode attracted 7.2million viewers – the most successful comedy launch on BBC One since 2014. But by the end of the six-part series this had slipped to 4.1million.

It also got decidedly mixed reviews from the press, with The Times calling it ‘a benign, feelgood comedy where the talent felt as if it were only using three cylinders’.

The Mirror’s Ian Hyland could only bring himself to say: ‘I didn’t totally hate it’, with The List similarly limp in its praise that ‘the jokes are mild and the banter bearable’.

The Observer noted that ‘even the title sounds like a mocktail served at Dignitas. Yes, it really was that much fun’

The Irish Independent said: ‘It was all so tame and jaded I felt as if I were watching a rerun of Terry and June, George and Mildred or any of those other dire suburban sitcoms that used to be churned out in the 1970s and early 80s. And the attempt by Cleese, in his first BBC show since Fawlty Towers, to be genially benign was so excruciating that I didn't know where to look.’

However, BBC executives were full of praise for the show as filming resumes.

Shane Allen, the Corporation’s controller of comedy commissioning, said ‘We’d like to see the sun rise on another series of this hugely popular family sitcom which shimmers with legends of British comedy.’

And Chris Sussman, head of comedy at the programme-making arm BBC Studios said: ‘It’s been a dream working with such a cast of comedy legends, and I'm thrilled that we're getting the chance to bring them back together again.’

• Read Chortle’s review of the first episode of Hold The Sunset.

Produced by: BBC Studios production
Written by: Charles McKeown
Executive producer: Chris Sussman
Producers: Moira Williams, Humphrey Barclay and John Cleese
Director: Sandy Johnson.

Published: 20 Sep 2018