Starlings - TV review

Starlings is Sky 1's latest offering – and I am not quite sure what to say about it.

The show is a comedy drama telling the story of an extended family from Matlock in Derbyshire – three generations including a mum and dad, three grown-up children and granddad, as well as a new grandchild, who is born as the first episode starts.

The boyfriend, it emerges, is an ex-boyfriend, the brother keeps exotic pets and the tomboy sister now has to share a room with her granddad. So far so "normal".

The new series has been widely advertised and has a stellar cast including Lesley Sharp and Brendan Coyle – best known most recently for his role as in Downton Abbey.

Produced, as it is, by movie and comedy legend Steve Coogan, all the signs are good. . . then you watch it.

The performances are, in the main, good – but the script really, really lets this show down.

Too much time is spent setting the scene through the dialogue, and the "comedy" is laboured to say the least.

Watching the show you can see what they are trying to do.

But having viewed such beautifully observed and fantastically written shows, such as The Royle Family, it is difficult to take Starlings seriously as the "bittersweet comedy" which it claims to be.

The characters are hackneyed – a prime example being Fergie, fresh from Thailand with his floral shirt, hat, scarf, aviator shades and backpack – and stereotypical beyond belief.

Locally, though, points have to be given for his claim to have spent the night outside the cafe at Wolverhampton railway station, The Lemon Tree.

According to the promotion, Starlings follows the lives of a "typical working class Derbyshire brood" but this first episode is little more than a pantomime.

Bell – the beautiful daughter played by the new star of the BT ad campaign is, indeed, very beautiful but so wooden it is painful to watch.

First episodes will always suffer from the necessity of scene setting, and I really hope it gets better.

But, from what I have seen so far, I have to be honest and say I don't hold out much hope.

Sally Walmsley