It’s a long time since ITV set the comedy world alight. The 1990s threw up some random highlights – Jeeves and Wooster, the ubiquitous Mr Bean – but the next decade was something of a sitcom wasteland until Derren Litten’s outrageously funny Benidorm pitched up. That was followed a mere six years later by Plebs (essentially: if The Inbetweeners were Romans) and job centre-based comedy The Job Lot, whose title’s feel of this-pun-dictated-the-entire-premise still causes me to break out in a cold sweat. Yet despite these shows being the broadcaster’s only notable contributions to the form this century, ITV comedy still feels like a distinctive subgenre, one defined by old-school story beats and all the edge of a bouncy ball.
Into this decidedly unradical template struts Jordan Gray, the singer turned standup who in 2022 became the first transgender person to headline the London Palladium with her Edinburgh-award nominated hit show Is It A Bird? With her new sitcom, the 36-year-old provides the mainstream comedy mould with fresh fodder. We first encounter our hero, Liv, via a parody of one of those cheesy 00s razor adverts: a silky dressing gown is dropped; blades glide along already spotless shins and armpits – but then this classy babe begins shaving her face and urinating in the sink. The punchline? Her longsuffering housemate Tom (Thomas Gray) has been sitting on the toilet the whole time.
