Review

Rovers, Sky 1: a warm-hearted comedy with shades of The Royle Family - review

Craig Cash and Sue Johnston in Rovers
Supporting the underdog: Craig Cash and Sue Johnston in Rovers Credit: Sky

Craig Cash has made many contributions to British comedy over the past 20 years but he will always be remembered as David Best in his Bafta-winning sitcom The Royle Family. Co-written with Caroline Aherne, it portrayed Northern working-class, or workshy, characters with warmth and richness.

Since then Cash has been involved in a number of sitcoms, and whether he has written the material or not, his gentle handiwork is always in evidence. This is the case with Sky 1’s Rovers, a warm-hearted show about a group of Peak District non-league football fanatics, which Cash stars in and directs. Right from the theme tune, a charmingly down-at-heel brass version of You are My Sunshine, we’re in familiar territory.

The Redbridge Rovers are the worst team in their sub-conference league, but that doesn’t stop local fans dreaming of the big time. Cash’s character Pete Mott (“Meat Pott, Pete Mott, swap the letters round”), a guileless cemetery worker known for swearing on local radio about his team, will “die a happy man” if he sees them make it to the Evo-Stik Premier League. “Imagine playing the likes of Nantwich, the Blyth Spartans and Frickley,” said Pete’s even dopier friend Tom, sympathetically observed by Jamie Demetriou, in the first episode.

However, the focus of the show is really about the community of the team’s clubhouse, run by Doreen (Sue Johnston, another Royle Family alumnus). In the lead-up to the meat raffle, gossip was circulating about their team’s captain, white and married to a white woman, who had been seen wheeling a black baby around Carpet World. Meanwhile Pete tried to be accepting of his big gruff mate Tel (Steve Speirs) who recently came out as gay and was now taking his boyfriend to games.

 Steve Speirs in Rovers
Out and proud: Steve Speirs in Rovers Credit: Sky

The supporting cast was excellent. A stand-out was Diane Morgan, who has received rave reviews for her performance as witless TV presenter Philomena Cunk. Here she played Mandy, a plumber with an infected tattoo on her bottom.

Cash didn’t write the show: the script is by Joe Wilkinson and David Earl, who also appear. But Rovers nevertheless sticks closely to The Royle Family model, gently poking fun at people's mundane observations. However, the writing sometimes got lost amid the gaping silences as the almost exclusively vacant cast of characters reacted to everything at a snail’s pace. 

Cash’s work in the late Nineties paved the way for the success of Peter Kay’s more raucous Phoenix Nights and subsequent sitcoms. The triumph of the recent Car Share might have reignited interest in warm-hearted comedy, but, at the moment, Rovers feels too mild. Yet character comedy such as this requires a long acquaintance – by the end of the run, we may have fallen in love with the gentle dreamers of the Redbridge Rovers’ Clubhouse.

 

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