TV review by Steve Bennett

Comedies notoriously need time to settle; letting viewers gradually get to know the characters and their situation. And when a new show’s writers and stars have the combined reputations of Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, there’s a very real risk of disappointment.

But Catastrophe got off to a powerful start, cramming a full series-worth of exposition and drama into the first ten minutes. By the commercial break Sharon had met Rob – their characters’ names are their own – had copious sex, found out she was pregnant and told she has got a ‘not cancer cancer’. Oh, and dropped a perfectly-timed C-bomb.

That outburst was not caused by the tsunami of life-altering events she’d just experienced, but because she’d run into her ‘friend’ Fran – a smug, rod-up-the-ass homeopath who’s the sort of person who invites you over then patronisingly insists: ‘We keep a shoe-free home.’

As Fran, Ashley Jensen – plus Line Of Duty’s Mark Bonnar as her terse, sharp husband – immediately look like brilliant additions to the cast, with her ghastliness and a perfect contrast to Sharon’s muddling through and Rob’s good intentions. Certainly the treading-on-eggshells dinner party they hosted added to the comedy of awkwardness that seems to define Sharon and Rob’s relationships with each other, and the outside world.

Cringe can sometimes be offered as a substitute for humour, but here you get both, with some wonderfully sardonic, offhand lines. Rob, trying to make an honest woman of Sharon even though they are virtual strangers, tells her that fewer arranged marriages end in divorce. Sharon deadpans perfectly: ’Is it because they end in suicide?’

With such turmoil in the story and characters who ought to be old enough to know better, Catastrophe already promises to be high-stakes, darkly funny and unashamedly grown-up. For those of us still mourning the premature death of Horgan’s breakthrough show Pulling, this already looks like the next best thing – and with a strong ‘just how is this shit going to turn out’ imperative driving the story, it’s a show worth Sky Plussing.

Published: 19 Jan 2015