Comics Samson Kayo and Jane Horrocks bring just enough charm to elevate this ambulance-based sitcom from perilously laugh-free to worth 22 minutes of your time
In this new comedy (Sky One), Maleek’s former paramedic partner Kevin has gone on sabbatical to Thailand. Maleek is supremely confident this has nothing to do with the fact he accidentally defibrillated Kevin on their last callout together, but then Maleek is supremely confident about most things. The brio and energy that Famalam’s Samson Kayo – who also co-created this series – brings to the role is a joy to behold. If it also manages to shock some underpowered writing into life along the way, that, too, is all to the good.
In Kevin’s absence, Maleek is paired with Wendy (Jane Horrocks). She is a perky, quirky paramedic from the north – or “Emmerdale”, as Maleek has it – recently divorced and on Tinder, hoping to start a new life in London. Think an older Bubble from Ab Fab, with a driving licence and graduation certificate. I find Horrocks’s perky, quirky shtick quite effortful and exhausting, but I am aware that I am in the minority. She is in the show a lot, and has to work hard in every moment of screen time, given some of the weakest lines and set-ups. (A lot of supposed hilarity revolves around her, an impossibly aged crone of 50-odd, having sex with new people and misusing the street slang she picks up from Maleek.)
