Only Child: The Scottish sitcom that is actually funny

Lucy Punch continues to shine as the divorced mother of two struggling with her new, smaller life. The real strength of Amandaland, however, lies in its being an ensemble piece. Without Joanna Lumley as her ab fab mum, lovely Anne (Philippa Dunne), and long-suffering neighbour Mal (Samuel Anderson), Amanda would simply be a snooty monster with no redeeming qualities. With them, there is hope for her yet. 

When we meet again, Amanda is still failing to cut it as an influencer. Her new company, the deliberately misspelt Senuous, “operates in the aspirational end of the lifestyle contents space”, or so she tells a loan adviser. Meanwhile, a rival has appeared in the form of Mal’s ex, and we know there’s nothing Queen Amanda loathes more than competition. 

True, the odd line is tired or lacks polish, suggesting a rush to deliver, but we care enough about the characters for it not to matter too much. 

Another parent and child combo is at the heart of Only Child (BBC Scotland Monday/BBC One, Wednesday) with Gregor Fisher and Greg McHugh playing Ken and Richard Pritchard. In the last series of the Forres-set sitcom, it was Ken who was on a downward slope as he mourned the loss of his wife. Richard reluctantly returned from London, taking time out from his acting career, to look after his dad, even if the old so-and-so did not want his help.  

It was the heartache of the sandwich generation mined for comedy, and it worked. Guilt, love, duty, loss, joy - all parent-child life was here. In the new series, the see-saw has tipped the other way: Ken has got his mojo back, while Richard has lost his (and his job). 

Writer Bryce Hart delivers a slyly subversive look at getting older and small-town Scottish life. He can sum up seismic shifts with a well-turned line, as when one character says to Richard, “Toilets. What’s going on there then?” Fisher and McHugh do the rest with their perfectly balanced double act.

Hart has added oomph to the show with new characters, including Tam Dean Burn as Richard’s old ham of a drama teacher. There’s a potential pal on the horizon for Ken, but first the community has to fight off a threat to the town’s allotments.

Hart packs more gags into his half hour than there are in Amandaland, but hey, it’s not a competition. Either comedy on its own would make a decent evening’s viewing, or even an indecent one. Together, they make Wednesday, life’s hump day, something to look forward to. 

The arrival of new office equipment wasn’t the most exciting thing to ever happen at Harvey’s Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.  The note attached, however, had a certain attention-grabbing quality. Nearly half a century on, the opening words would form the title of the thrilling three-part documentary, This is a Bomb: the Nevada Casino Heist (BBC Two, Tuesday). 

This was no “photocopier”, and the note was a ransom demand for three million dollars and a helicopter. Even today, the FBI’s own website says the Harvey’s Casino bomb, packed with 1000 lbs of dynamite, “remains one of the most unique improvised explosive devices (IEDs) the Bureau has ever come across.”

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The bomb and its aftermath make such an incredible story that you wonder if it has been covered before. Sure enough, several documentaries and books have appeared over the years, but for slickness and storytelling approach, this BBC three-parter stands out.

Through interviews with FBI experts and others, reconstructions, archive footage and a striking use of AI to recreate a voice from beyond the grave, This is a Bomb takes the viewer step by step through the crime and its aftermath.

At the centre of the tale is Jim Birges, one of two sons of “Big John Birges”, a Hungarian who moved to the US in the 1950s. Birges Snr claimed to have been a double agent for the CIA. He was also said to have flown for the Luftwaffe and been in a Soviet prison camp. Somewhere along the way, he learned how to blow things up. 

He and his wife initially lived the American dream, becoming rich through their landscaping business. But John was also a gambler, and he lost heavily to Harvey’s. According to Birges Snr, the casino had cheated him out of his fortune. 

He turned to his sons, Jim and John Jr for help in making the bomb. The boys did not get along with their father or each other. As Jim relates here, their childhood was marred by beatings from dad.

The film spends time mapping the family’s troubled history, making this more than a story about a heist. It is a gaze at the immigrant experience and at a father’s relationship with his children. But it also plays out like a thriller with twists around every corner. 

It’s the type of audacious caper you might expect Neil Forsyth to write up for the small screen. Instead, he has delivered Legends (Netflix). As with Gold, his take on the Brink’s-Mat heist, it is based on a true story. It’s 1990, and Margaret Thatcher has declared a war on drugs.  But there’s no money and no time, so a typically British make-do effort takes shape. 

Steve Coogan plays Don, an old war horse who has seen time undercover and now has the job of recruiting customs officers to the cause. Among the recruits, some are bored with the routine of everyday life, and others genuinely feel a need to serve. 

A cracking cast has turned out for Forsyth, including Tom Burke (Strike) and Hayley Squires (The Night Manager). It takes a while to settle into the right space between edgy comedy and thriller. For a long spell, there doesn’t seem to be much jeopardy, with the characters getting in and out of hairy situations with relative ease. But halfway through the six episodes, Forsyth settles on a plan, bringing his various subplots together into a satisfying, occasionally terrifying, whole. 

Jill Halfpenny and Sally Lindsay are two of the best-known faces in 5 drama, both regularly occupying what I affectionately call the 9 pm Mad Women Slot. Incredibly, Number One Fan (Channel 5, Monday-Thursday) finds them together for the first time. Think Pacino and De Niro in Heat, but with a better drop earrings game. 

Halfpenny plays Lucy Logan, a daytime television presenter who is not in any way, shape, or form to be confused with Lorraine Kelly. She’s not Scottish, for a start. So what if Lucy, which sounds a bit like Lolly, Kelly’s nickname, is also a hard-working lassie with fingers in many pies, including being the face of a fashion label. Not our Lorraine, clear?

Lucy may be famous, but she still does her own supermarket shop. It is while hunter-gathering that her bag is snatched, and the mugger sprints off. Not fast enough, however, for Donna (Lindsay), who springs out of nowhere, rams him with a trolley and proceeds to slap him into submission. 

Lucy is so grateful, but modest Donna is having none of it. “I’m just ex-military,” she says. “The training kicks in.” Get that woman over to the Strait of Hormuz and get her slapping. Instead, Lucy invites her to the studio and showers her number one fan with lots of freebies. But is Donna all she seems?

It would be a dull old world if she were. Happily, the makers of Number One Fan have bigger, increasingly incredible things in mind for Lucy and Donna as the story unfolds over four nights. 

Surrounding Lucy and Donna, as is traditional, are several useless or untrustworthy men, including one obsessive, played by the always good value Dean Andrews (Emmerdale). His character has a novel recipe for the truffles he sends to Lucy, one you definitely should not try at home. 

Halfpenny and Lindsay (new detective series, anyone?) are both ex-Coronation Street. I’d say they can do this stuff in their sleep, but that might come across as dismissive. The story might take one or 50 handbrake turns, but this pair keep calm amid the carry on.