TV review by Steve Bennett

Call the trades description people. At the start of the second series of Peter Kay’s Car Share John and Kayleigh aren’t even sharing a car, after Sian Gibson's character moved in with her sister.

But you can bet your last supermarket loyalty point that such a state of affairs won't last all four episodes. (In fact, you can see for yourself, as they’ll all be on iPlayer immediately after episode one airs on BBC One tonight). For the pair are so inseparable that they remain constantly on the phone to each other – reception blackspots permitting – for the duration of their now separate journeys to work.

As you may recall from the last series, Kayleigh even gave her driver a copy of Now 48 as a token of her affection. You can certainly believe John – if not Kay himself – would be the sort of person to have a compilation CD in the list of their all-time favourite albums, and the disc has a particular significance in this episode, with Kayleigh having highlighted one track for him to remember her by, hinting at deeper feelings.

Despite the main characters’ forced separation, little has changed from the winning formula of the first series, with a plot that unfolds gently and rather predictably – it is, after all, a comedy based on relatable everyday experiences. 

OK, the fantasy sequence comes as a bit of a surprise, though it only served to underline the sweetness at the heart of the show. It’s always a careful balancing act between heavily-engineered schmaltz and convincing affection, and the show mostly gets its right, thanks to endearing performances from both Kay and Gibson and the obvious chemistry between these real-life best friends.

Car Share is predominantly more ‘warm feeling inside’ comedy than the laugh-out-loud sort, though it certainly has its moments of the latter. The ‘guilty pleasures’ output of Forever FM is always a delight – the shed commercial in tonight’s episode proving a spot-on parody of local radio – while the eagle-eyed are rewarded for paying attention to the background.

Meanwhile, the denouement of the episode has just the sort of cheesy charm Kay has made a very lucrative career out of. Fans will not be disappointed.

• Peter Kay’s Car Share is on BBC One at 9pm tonight

Review date: 11 Apr 2017
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