This brilliantly odd slice of comedy gold has lit up our screens for 10 years. As its creator announces it has come to an end, we give thanks for all the belly laughs and squirrel gags
In early 2011, something strange happened. A sitcom centred on the weekly gatherings of the Goodman family debuted on Channel 4, jam-packed with intricate slapstick, infantile pranking and idiosyncratic terms of endearment (“Hello bambinos!”). But it wasn’t merely Friday Night Dinner’s comic language that made it an unexpected joy. Incredibly, the show was the second sitcom about a British Jewish family to arrive on UK screens in the space of six months, after Simon Amstell’s Grandma’s House. Honestly, you wait a lifetime for a show about British Jews and two come along at once.
Yet while Grandma’s House – the bleaker and more awkward of the two – bowed out after two series, Friday Night Dinner kept going. To date, it has had six series and 37 episodes, charming audiences with a chaotic mix of brotherly, practical-joke-based warfare, motherly mollycoddling, stomach-churning condiment consumption (dad Martin) and terrifying social ineptitude (neighbour Jim). This Friday, it celebrates its 10th anniversary with a documentary in which cast members including Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird and Tom Rosenthal, plus famous fans, relive the scrapes and squirrel quips that made Friday Night Dinner one of the most treasured comedies in recent memory – and the longest-running Channel 4 sitcom since Peep Show.
