Gimme Gimme Gimme

When Gimme Gimme Gimme first hit the television screen in 1998, it immediately divided the critics. Plenty loathed it, but it soon acquired cult comedy status in the BBC2 post-watershed tradition. Since then it has gone mainstream on BBC1 but as the first series shows, its appeal lies in a surreal anarchy. Linda (Kathy Burke, brilliant) and Tom (James Dreyfus, who went on to star with Bette Midler in her ill-fated sitcom) live in a world of self-delusion. They are the ultimate misfits; a grotesque ladette who thinks she is "gorgeous" and worships Liam Gallagher and a neurotic gay actor who can't land a decent part for toffee but cherishes a secret passion for Simon Shephard, the smooth star of popular television dramas such as Peak Practice. They trade non-PC insults like most people make small talk (Linda: "There's no such thing as gay. It's just laziness."), yet are totally reliant on each other. It's vulgar, coarse, often outrageous and certainly not for the faint-hearted. But in most parts it is extremely funny. And if the self-regarding cuteness of so many US comedy imports turns your stomach, you'll love it. This is Will and Grace, on cocaine, in a parallel universe.

Linda La Hughes (Kathy Burke) and Tom Farrell (James Dreyfus) share a flat in London. Linda is totally over the top, Tom is gay and lonely. Both are after a man, any man at all. Also featuring the Millenium Special, this title contains all the episodes from the second series of this outrageous comedy; 'Teacher's Pet', 'Stiff', 'Prison Visitor', 'Dirty Thirty', 'Glad To Be Gay', and 'Sofa Map'.

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme took situation comedy to new peaks of vulgarity when it returned for a third and final series in 2001, thanks to the full-on performances of James Dreyfus (Tom) and Kathy Burke (Linda) who suck up Jonathan Harvey's innuendo-laden scripts and spit them out like a couple of thespian tornados. "I don't think anything could relax my lips, baby," leers Burke, milking the endless supply of double entendres. "Mind you, after a couple of vodkas they're usually flapping around like flip-flops."
Tom's descent into self-parody--when he looks in the mirror, he sees the new Noel Coward--can have only one logical conclusion: the offer of a bit-part in Crossroads which eventually splits up this dysfunctional friendship. Sex-crazed Linda is deluded beyond all reason--when she looks in the mirror, she sees Catherine Zeta Jones--and here we finally get some insight into the reasons behind her grotesque traits: visits from her old Borstal wing governor (the excellent Ann Mitchell, sending up her Widows character), and the long-lost son she gave up for adoption.

Like all successful comedy, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme has its dark side. It also becomes increasingly surreal as the episodes pass: Tom fails miserably in a walk-on role in a conceptual Japanese drama presented in a fire station; and Linda turns the back garden into a campsite. Sophisticated it isn't, but it's often wickedly hilarious and occasionally brilliant.