Great Britain, a land of averages. People are, on average, married, though the divorce rate suggests not especially happily so. They have a couple of kids and some support from extended family members. They live not in the capital and not in the middle of nowhere, but in one of Britain’s many suburban and dormitory towns. Enter, then, the Jessops – the calamity prone, Bedford-based, very average family at the heart of the BBC’s new cult sitcom, Here We Go.
There is an inherent sweetness to their personalities that perhaps separates them from your average Briton (or British comedy character). Patriarch (a word that seems totally ill-fitting) Paul (Jim Howick) is an unemployed former Olympic archer, struggling to impose any direction on his life. His wife Rachel (Katherine Parkinson) is trapped in frustrated suburbia, while her brother Robin (the show’s creator, Tom Basden) lurches from disaster to disaster. Rounding out the family unit are the Jessop children, sulky Amy (Freya Parks) and aspiring YouTuber Sam (Jude Collie), through whose lens the whole show unfurls. And floating over everything is Alison Steadman’s Sue, Paul’s mother, a classic “feeder”. “We’re a curious family,” Robin announces at a family dinner. And they are, but only in a lightly catastrophic way.
