This must be the greatest "came up with the title first" TV show in history – but when the wordplay is this good, you have to forgive it. In case it hasn’t clicked immediately, Rob Brydon stars as Bill, a recently dumped 60-something who comes up with a novel way to beat loneliness and cover his costs – rent out his spare rooms to four incoming university students.
Said students are studious Zahra (Yasmin Al-Khudhairi), boarding school student-turned social justice champion Christian (Dylan Brady), nerdy James (Harry Baxendale) and sweet, naive Hettie (Ada Player). Bill also wants to be one of the gang. Or as he puts it, more "Landfriend" than "Landlord". So in this rental property… Bill’s included. Roll credits.
If that sounds like a lot to set up, never fear – writers Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen (better known as sketch comedy duo The Pin) breeze past all that in the first five minutes, and have Brydon getting on his young tenants' nerves in no time. Imagine learning house rules from Gavin and Stacey’s Bryn, with added piano singalongs, passive aggressive "suggestion boxes" and pedantry, and you may begin to understand why the four lodgers are desperate to find excuses to head off to the fresher's fair. Mouldy student halls never looked so appealing…
In fact, if you squint, you can often imagine this as a spin-off from Ruth Jones and James Corden's acclaimed series where Uncle Bryn goes it alone. Bill is similarly naive and eager to please; he has similarly odd interests like making balloon animals, and in one episode, he even offers to make an omelette – very much in keeping with West family style. He is, perhaps, slightly less comically idiotic than Bryn, though Bill's mistakes do somehow cause even bigger disasters.
It's not the most revolutionary sitcom out there, and if you've even just glanced at a television (or stood near one) in the past 20 years you'll see where a lot of the storylines are going. There's the fact that Bill, who is somewhat clumsy, also has to mind a three-tiered wedding cake for a neighbour. Or when, while on a date, he forgets the names of the James Joyce novels he's supposed to have read (when the students are coincidentally at a cool night club just over the road). And then, of course, there's an occasion where he fakes problems in the house to seem more useful, just when the students have made another older friend who's quite handy with a soldering iron…
Still, Ashenden and Owen do sometimes sneak in a joke or two that is outside of the box enough to remind you of their sketch comedy work. Without giving any punchlines away, there's an extended answerphone gag in the first episode (involving Bill's best pal and record store owner Drew, played by Kevin Eldon) that gets a big laugh, and in episode four there's a brilliant riff on what we might have expected from James's calligraphy club and their nocturnal activities.
The most impressive part of the whole series, though, is its speed. So many modern comedies drag their feet to get to a comic set piece or plot twist, but every single episode of Bill’s Included is packed with incident; motoring through story beats and delivering a well-paced, self-contained adventure each week. And in the background, a larger arc about Bill's obvious chemistry with his next-door neighbour Siobhan (Samantha Spiro) in spite of her grumpy husband (Nigel Lindsay) bubbles along nicely.
As sitcoms go it's not the most groundbreaking, but it's funny and sweet enough to earn its keep in the BBC's schedules. Much like the students, you may initially be a little resistant to Bill's charms but he will gradually win you over. And based on the series' cliffhanger ending, the BBC seems confident viewers will want to renew the lease.
Bill's Included airs on BBC One and releases on BBC iPlayer on 20 November.
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