ITV is back in the sitcom game

ITV has is poised to order a second series of comedy Kate & Koji, more than a year after apparently turning its back on sitcoms altogether.

In 2019, the broadcaster’s boss Kevin Lygo admitted the future of sitcom on its flagship channel looked ‘quite bleak’ after cancelling Birds of a Feather and Jack Dee’s sitcom Bad Move.

But Kate & Koji – starring Brenda Blethyn as a set-in-her-ways cafe owner and Jimmy Akingbola as an asylum-seeking African doctor who becomes a regular – has been a hit.

Written by Outnumbered creators Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, the six-part series aired in March and April and peaked at more than six million viewers.

However, it divided critics.

In the Daily Mail, Christopher Stevens wrote a gushing five-star review, saying it was ‘funny enough to make me snort with laughter.’

And Chortle said: ‘ITV could just have created that rarest of creatures – a mainstream sitcom that’s constantly funny… There’s a high joke rate with a spark coming from the clear conflict between the two leads.’

But in a two-star write-up, The Independent called it ‘unfunny, uninspired and unworthy’ with critic Sean O’Grady predicting, somewhat incorrectly it turns out: ‘I would not be surprised if it was pulled before the end of its six-week run.’

And also awarding two stars, the Daily Telegraph said: ‘It feels so old-fashioned that even the 1970s might have disowned it. ‘

The Guardian was even less kind, calling it: ‘A show so distasteful and dated that watching it is like looking into a time-capsule montage of Britain’s finest moments of racial prejudice.’

Filming on the second series is not expected until next year, for broadcaster later in 2021.

Published: 1 Jun 2020