Groan ups

So I’ve got sat here two preview DVDs with all eight episodes of Grown Ups on it. It’s the new BBC3 sitcom “from the creator of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps“, no less, which transmits on 9 May. On the basis of the ep I’ve watched, Susan Nickson isn’t going to become famed for her versatility any time soon.

The writer is pretty much replaying the same old Two Pints preconceptions and ticks. In short, that’s childish twentysomethings obsessing over sex and sherbet Dib Dabs. With Sheridan Smith. And, yes, it’s as witless as that makes it sound, with not a single laugh over its 25 minutes.

This is hardly hold-the-front-page stuff, though, is it? It seems the critical knives are barely sheathed when it comes to Nickson’s work, with even the BBC’s comedy website coming over all snippy when referencing Two Pints. Granted, there’s an element of precociousness to her that generally rubs people up the wrong way (bagging her first commission while she was still in her teens), but that doesn’t come close to dismissing the weight of the prosecution’s evidence.

That said, someone out there patently likes her stuff, if six series of Runcorn-based shouting are anything to go by, anyway.

“I’m incredibly lazy,” said Nickson in a kids’ Q&A sesh here, referring to Two Pints, “and just basically set the show in my living room, my local, and my mum’s house. I really should get out and do something else if I want to write something new. Nah, can’t be bothered.”

And there you have it. On the evidence of Grown Ups she’s still house-bound. As for me, shall I crack on with the other seven episodes? Nah, can’t be bothered.