TV Review: Him & Her (BBC3)

RUSSELL TOVEY admits that his mum found certain scenes of his new comedy series Him & Her “a bit gross”. Indeed, toilet humour is a big part of the series, a warts-and-all comedy about young, unemployed couple Becky and Steve, and the random assortment of friends, relatives and misfits who pop into Steve’s squalid bedsit.

Tovey, who plays lazy, loved-up Steve, thinks the fact Steve and his girlfriend, Becky, aren’t bashful about their bodily functions serves a purpose.

“A few people said we were trying to shock, which wasn’t what it was about,” he says. “This couple have no boundaries.

They have no inhibitions in front of each other and it’s about the freedom of that and the beauty of being in love and accepting the other person.”

The series is filmed in real time and set solely in the bedsit. “It’s our little cage,” he adds. “We get in there and talk filth. It actually is quite filthy now – the sofa stinks.”

While Tovey admits to living in a few dives in his time, he describes himself as “quite house-proud” and says his north London home, where he lives alone, is very clean.

Apart from that – plus the fact that Tovey is gay and Steve is straight – the actor says there’s not much else to separate them. “I am Steve,” he declares. “I’ve had arguments with partners before and find myself sounding like Steve or quoting lines from the script.”

For a man on the dole, Steve’s got a fair amount to deal with in this series. Becky (played by Sarah Solemani) has just moved in and, although he declares it to be the best day of his life, he’s aware that things are going to change. “Steve wants it to be a bachelor pad. He’s semi-reluctant, but as it’s a love story, this is a natural progression for them,” he says.

Their loner neighbour, Dan, who likes to pop over unannounced, is still around, as is sad single mother Shelly, Becky’s dimwit sister Laura and her aggressive fiance Paul. But there’s also a new regular caller at the flat in the shapely form of Steve’s pushy ex-girlfriend.

Although it’s a comedy, many of the characters are sad and damaged, and Tovey thinks this suits the show’s type of humour. “I like the fact the show has such a truth behind it. It’s billed as a comedy, but it’s not like, ‘Boom, boom, boom, there’s the joke.’ There’s no studio audience, it’s played for real.”

NEW documentary The Food Hospital examines the science behind using certain foods as medicine.

Patients will be checked in to the eponymous residence and will be prescribed specific food treatment programmes to find out if their health problems can be alleviated, or even cured, by the food they eat.

The featured patients have conditions ranging from common problems like chronic fatigue and eczema, to unusual disorders such as fish odour syndrome and gout, to life-threatening diseases like type 2 diabetes and breast cancer.

Online, The Food Hospital seeks to put this emerging area of medical science to the test nationwide by inviting viewers to take part in scientific studies conducted by two British universities.

These will constitute valuable research into how simple foodstuffs could alleviate illnesses, on a national scale.

In the first edition, we meet Lauren, a 24-year-old suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome. She seeks advice about how to properly manage its symptoms, which include weight gain and excessive body and facial hair. Unless she can find help, Lauren fears living as a virtual recluse forever.

Cameras also follow seven-year-old Harvey, whose life is a nightmare thanks to crippling migraines. We see how twin sisters Kristen and Maren, 25, are trying to use food as a weapon against breast cancer, and whether 44-year-old single dad Chris can turn around the world’s fifth biggest killer, type 2 diabetes, with food.

Plus, The Food Hospital launches a series of ambitious nationwide “food as medicine” trials, kicking off this week to see if chocolate can help fight high blood pressure.