I missed out on the whole first series for being so judgemental. It’s quite possibly the only programme that doesn’t reduce the countryside to being an amusing daydream for city folk. Instead, it is the must delicately observed comedies on TV at the moment, making Peep Show look like an exercise in gross stereotyping. At its heart is Sal and Tip, two middle-aged friends who are trying to deal with a woman’s guild of women they are desperately trying not to become.
The younger cast takes in David Mitchell playing, well, David Mitchell – who in any case is in risk of taking Myleene Klass’s Crown Of TV Ubiquity if he isn’t careful – and Sally Phillips and Simon Farnaby as hippies who will never quite get it on. The cast is largely women, which, at the risk of being heckled as a horrendous sexist, doesn’t reek of comedy potential. But the character studies for each are so careful that the programme works.
What is even more shocking is that this completes Jennifer Saunders from a comedy also-ran into one of the most sharp observers of modern-day life. The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle could have been a one-note pastiche of Jeremy Kyle, but proved to be such a good idea that the programme didn’t flag over an entire series. Jam and Jerusalem does a fine line in both one-liners and running jokes.
Unfortunately for the programme it is in the elderly care home slot of Friday night BBC One, so either catch the signed report on Tuesday night (with the most involved signing you are likely to see outside of The Hits) or get what is currently the one decent comedy on iPlayer. It isn’t often we get comedy this good, so stop folding your clingfilm and give it a spin.
