At Home With The Braithwaites (ITV)
HERE is proof, if proof were needed, that money can't buy you love and happiness. This third series finds Alison Braithwaite, the mother-of-three who won £38m on the Euro-Lottery, in deep, deep trouble. But which of her problems is worse - finding yourself pregnant by your husband's brother (the one your schoolgirl daughter Charlotte tried to murder) or facing losing your entire fortune (because the winning lottery ticket was bought by that same under-age schoolgirl and is therefore invalid)? Answering that isn't easy, but the route to the solution is proving great fun.
Sally Wainwright's series is one of the few that actually merits being categorised as comedy-drama. Often, this means the series falls short on both counts, but not here. Wainwright achieves both sides of the description as the action, involving plots that wouldn't be out of place in a soap, lurches convincingly between bawdy comedy with a surreal edge and a heartfelt drama of mothers and daughters. A typical exchange runs along these lines: "Did I ever tell you I once set my granny on fire?," said Braithwaite daughter Charlotte. "Why?," asked her friend. "I wanted to watch the wrestling," came the deadpan reply.
From all this, you might think Charlotte is the most troublesome of the Braithwaite offspring. Far from it. Virginia, who embezzled vast amounts of money from her mother's charity, has moved in with her pregnant lesbian lover. And Sarah, working undercover for Virginia's one-time lesbian private eye lover, is having sex with her schoolteacher - the very man she's supposed to be investigating.
The series benefits enormously from a smart, believable performances from Amanda Redman as Alison Braithwaite and Peter Davison (good enough to make you forget his Doctor Who wasn't a patch on most of the others) as well a trio of troublesome daughters from Sarah Smart, Sarah Churm and Keeley Fawcett.
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