TALK about a hard act to follow. Lift After Birth, next Friday at 9.30 p.m., is Channel 4's attempt to ensure there is life after Father Ted. Yes, those of you who missed the first run of the most splendid slice of surreal writing since The Third Policeman, must wait until RTE re runs the series. For the moment, the blessed Dougal and his mentor are on leave.
If Father Ted came from the cupboard marked Weird, sharing shelf space with other such esoteric delights as The Young Ones and Bottom this replacement offering (not that anything could replace Father Ted) comes from the cupboard marked Wacky. First there was Men Behaving Badly and Dressing For Breakfast (women behaving badly). Lift After Birth gives us baby behaving badly.
It had to happen. Where Hollywood finds gold, TV is sure to panhandle. Three Men And A Baby and Look Who's Talking showed that babies come with inherent hilarity potential and on the evidence of the first episode, Channel 4 would appear to have struck a rich seam. For a start it's about as real a portrayal of early motherhood as I've ever seen. Labour is hell. The pain is unbearable. Waters break. Vaginas tear. And nobody else, apart from the father, gives a damn. (Except that in this case there is no father.) Once present on our screens in all his balding sweetness, the baby cries. No, I lie. The baby bawls. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the baby's insistent screeching put all maternal reflexes on red alert and sent fathers down to the pub quicker than you can say Ballykissanel.
Set in the familiar "behaving badly" landscape of urban flat share, Lift After Birth is subtitled "it's not just the baby that has to grow up". It tells the tale of Alison (Emma Cunniffe) and Judith (Paula Bacon), two laddish girls barely out of nappies themselves. The difference between them is that in Alison's haste to open the condom packet nine months before the action starts, her teeth ripped open more than the packet. Not, of course, that she realised it at the time. Can that really be funny? And is single parenthood something to give a platform to anyway?
The answer on both counts is yes. In its in your face honesty on gynaecological, sexual and emotional levels Lift After Birth might breathe sense into young girls who think that having a baby is only a few steps removed from having a puppy while at the same time show that, far horn being a meal ticket to cheap housing and free dental are, single parenthood is the most exhausting and emotionally draining situation for any young mother to find herself in.
What's more, against all expectations, perhaps, it is very funny. And not only I suspect, for those who have personally negotiated the seductive yet treacherous stepping stones of parenthood.
Its success is less surprising when we discover that far from being the product of experienced, well known sitcom writers, authors Simon Block and Teresa Poland are televisual greenhorns. But they have plundered their own experiences with the wit and wisdom of the innocent.
Teresa, a teacher in an inner London comprehensive, had a child when she was only 19 and coped for three years on her own before she met Simon, who she married. He already has considerable writing plaudits to his credit and is one of the new generation of theatre whiz kids who have been nurtured by London's Royal Court Theatre. Amazingly they're only 23 and 26 respectively. (Baby is three.)
Like the central character in the show, they live on a council estate and in the characters of neighbours Sylv and Trish (Paula Wilcox and Jackie Downey), the authors have created classic working class Jeremiahs as far removed from the fake cockney comedy duo of Sharon and Tracy in Birds Of A Feather as Going For A Song is from Lovejoy.
Carla Lane's tired update of The Liver Birds hit our screens last week with the impact of an old sock and failed miserably to rekindle the spark of the original. Even Auf Wiedersehen Pet 10 years on somehow missed the beat. The only British comedy re visited that ever really worked was Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. With writing talent coming through of the calibre of Father Ted and Life After Birth, the commissioning powers that be should be reminded that comedy is of its time as nothing else. It can be repeated ad infinitum in the case of the very best Dad's Army. The Young Ones, Faulty Towers. Steptoe, Blackadder. But for new comedy, you need new blood.