Any new show directed by Craig Cash and starring Ralf Little will inevitably be compared to their first series together, The Royle Family. Little also shares writing duties with co-star Michelle Terry, and the two don’t stray very far from the template of keeping the action in one place, Cyril’s café on the seafront of Weston-super-Mare.
There are no belly laughs, zinging one-liners or Miranda-style slapstick. The humour is gently observational, and the success of the show depends on whether or not viewers warm to the characters. Ordinary people leading ordinary lives, where nothing very much happens.
Cyril’s is a family business run by Carol Porter (Ellie Haddington) and with staff often outnumbering the customers, it’s clear the café is in trouble. With final demands stacking up Carol will need to make some changes – but will they alienate her loyal customers? Local florist Stan (David Troughton) is definitely interested in being more than friends, judging by the amount of time he spends in the café, but so far Carol is resisting his floral charms.
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To add to her worries, daughter Sarah (Terry) is back from London, broken-hearted and looking for work. Sarah desperately wants to be a children’s writer, but so far has had no success in getting a literary agent or a publisher. Carol seems to think finding a new man will solve most of her problems, but the pickings are pretty slim.
Ex-boyfriend Richard (Little) is quite keen to take up their relationship again, but his lack of ambition isn’t particularly inviting. Richard has never left Weston-super-Mare and has no intentions of doing so, seemingly content to work at the local nursing home and play at being a rock star. Invited to join Meat Loaf on an upcoming tour, he was forced to decline as he teaches guitar on a Tuesday.
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Queen of all she surveys is Carol’s mother Mary (June Watson), who sits in her armchair at the café and knits, albeit very badly. Bearing more than a passing resemblance to The Royle Family’s Nana, her conversation switches from banal (“One of the bin men fell over this morning”) to tech-savvy (“You want to do that on an Excel spreadsheet, Carol") at the drop of a hat.
There is an assortment of potentially interesting characters, from Keiran the Human Statue (Kevin Traimor) to Sarah’s old classmate Chloe (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), now a hairdresser and the closest thing Weston-super-Mare has to a party animal. And so far there is a nice balance between older and younger characters, although the former seem to have interminable conversations about cream teas and EU regulations, and the latter insist on saying “laters” rather than “goodbye”.
The series has a real air of authenticity thanks to the on-location filming (apparently locals would wander by and get rather annoyed to discover they weren’t actually serving any food), but there are occasions when the writers are trying too hard for a laugh. “He’s got a dog AND he composts”, Carol says of Richard, as she tries for the umpteenth time to get Sarah back in the dating game. This is making him more attractive how?
The Café (Wednesdays, 9pm, Sky1) is certainly miles ahead of the truly unpleasant Mount Pleasant in the Sky comedy canon, but whether it will reach the cult status of The Royle Family remains to be seen. Ralf Little and Michelle Terry don’t quite have Cash’s keen ear for dialogue, but it’s a promising start.
Arlene Kelly - Born and raised in a small prairie town, by the time I graduated high school I decided I’d had enough of Manitoba winters and headed ...
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