Sitcoms aren’t meant to go anywhere: the default setting is one location full of characters who keep resetting to zero. Few have followed that rule as faithfully as Two Doors Down, a low-key comedy set on a middle-class close on the outskirts of Glasgow and focusing on retirement-age couple Eric and Beth Baird (Alex Norton and Arabella Weir), whose quiet life is forever interrupted by their eccentric neighbours inviting themselves in. That might be why it’s stayed on air for more than a decade: it’s never essential but always entertaining enough. You know what you’re getting.
The show prefers to stay put in the Bairds’ lounge, and if it does venture elsewhere it will usually just be to someone else’s house – nothing flashy. Domestic trivia takes precedence over big events; laughs are more often from what’s said than big visual gags. Emotions are kept in check, too. Wry British comedy that plonks itself down on suburban sofas – Abigail’s Party, The Royle Family, Mum – tends to have wrenching pathos lurking, with the characters harbouring either desperate sadness or reserves of affection for each other that they ultimately can’t keep hidden. Two Doors Down doesn’t bother with all that. After years of getting to know them, Beth would still rather her neighbours didn’t pop in.
