not-so-happy families! (My Family)

Member Name: deedles

Product:	My Family
Date:	17/05/03 (181 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: really funny, you can see yourself in it!

Disadvantages: little unoriginal at times

'My Family' is now into its fourth series and apparently a fifth is also being planned. Few would have guessed it would become so popular when the first, shortest series was greeted with reasonable ratings but not huge enthusiasm. I've watched most episodes of this comedy since it started and thought I'd share why I think it's one of the funniest things on TV at the moment.

Obviously, the story centres on a family - a middle-class, rather-more-than-averagely-dysfunctional family. There are the parents, Susan and Ben Harper (played with great charisma by Zoe Wanamaker and Robert Lindsay), and their children, the insane and hilarious Nick (Kris Marshall), the manipulative fashion-victim daughter Janey (Daniela Denby-Ashe) and the clever, geeky Michael (Gabriel Thomson).

Susan, a tour guide, is argumentative and always determined to get her own way - and generally does! Ben (a dentist, who employs a string of terrible assistants) frequently enters into competition with his wife but is no match for Susan's cunning and bribery. Poor Ben, grumpy and dissatisfied, comes off worst in most of the household's goings-on, and regularly rues the day he had children. He cannot understand them, is convinced they think he is a fool (which they do!) and avoids speaking to them as much as possible. Every so often, however, Susan decides he needs a heart-to-heart with one of his children, and he is forced into an excruciating 'let's have a little chat shall we?' which has thrown up various embarrassments over time (for instance when Ben is traumatised to learn that Janey is 'not a vir...ry naïve person' i.e. not a virgin!)

Daniela Denby-Ashe (Janey) has in fact now left the series - not a great loss in my opinion, since she didn't add a great deal to the programme when she was there. In the story, she's now at university, and has just had a baby which she's named Kenzo. The baby has already
caused competitive feelings between Ben and Susan as Susan endeavours to prove to Kenzo what a 'cool grandma' she is compared to 'grumpy grandpa'!

In Janey's place however we have a newcomer - cousin Abi, an art student and stereotypically stupid and wacky-looking. She recently dressed up as a giant piece of cheese for Halloween (an episode bizarrely shown in May but never mind!) Another new character is Roger, a dentist who works in the same building as Ben and has a crush on Abi but can't summon up the courage to ask her out.

Michael, the youngest of the Harper family, is growing up fast and has caused some anxiety for his parents during this series as Susan found a girl in his bed! He's been more involved in the action in this series and comes up with some hugely cutting remarks to poor Ben.

Last but by no means least comes Nick. As I have said he is...well...odd. He's my favourite character, and probably many other people's favourite too, since he provides so much of the really off-the-wall moments (I recall one episode where he became a Xmas tree seller but bought a load of saplings which he put in the living room, creating a temporary forest which he hid in when Ben sought retribution!) Nick is always trying some new job, whether it be sperm donor, stunt man in a team which also included a blind friend and a dog if I remember rightly!, tour guide for Susan (he brought the tourists back to his home for a tour of the house when he ran out of other attractions), human lab rat (he's done various experiments including not sleeping, and taking pills which cause memory loss - to the delight of Ben who hoped he'd forget where he lives, and Michael who asked him repeatedly for money which was owed him), oh and also artist - which involved wrapping everything in the house, including the walls, in brown paper. Kris Marshall is wonderful in this comedy part, and has exactly the right face for it
too - hmmm that sounds a little cruel but I'm sure it's just great acting on his part not nature being mean!

But now I've told you about all the characters, I hear you asking 'but why do you think it's so good?' Well, I think one of its key advantages is that almost anybody can see something of themselves or their own family in the programme...even if we don't want to admit to ourselves that we're really as weird as the Harpers! Sometimes the storylines are a bit predictable, and they do use some very old plots like the chaos caused by the mother-in-law, but the programme provides a fresh outlook on these problems! And whether it's unoriginal or not, the programme is really funny and never fails to make me laugh out loud. The rapport between Wanamaker and Lindsay as the parents is especially good. Some of the sequences - Ben doing a Mission Impossible type sequence to get upstairs to bed without setting off the new and temperamental burglar alarm for example - will have you in stitches!

I've heard various people scorning 'My Family' and saying it's boring and unfunny. As you can tell, I disagree! I think if you're in on a Friday evening it's the best thing on TV (well...equal best with Have I Got News For You which is also hilarious!) It's just what you need at the end of the working week - something to make you relax, laugh, and convince you that whatever you thought your own family isn't so unusual after all!

'My Family' is shown weekly on Friday evenings at 8.30pm.

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