Raised By Wolves, Channel 4, 10pm
The writer Caitlin Moran we know all about thanks to her journalism, her incessant tweeting and her recent bestseller How To Build A Girl, a semi-autobiographical novel. Her sister, Caroline 'Caz' Moran, is an unknown quantity, but that may all change after this new six-part comedy written by both Moran sisters (though Caitlin claims Caroline wrote all the funny bits, and they are many) and based not-very-loosely on their own rather unconventional upbringing in a Wolverhampton council house.
Raised By Wolves, which piloted in 2013, stays in the same city, updates the story to the present day and turns on the ups and downs of the riotous, six-strong Garry family: boiler suit-wearing survivalist mother Della, teenage daughters Germaine, Yoko and Aretha - see if you can figure out who they're named for - and a trio of younger siblings generally referred to as "the babies" but whose names are Mariah, Wyatt and Cher. Oh, and there's Della's dad, the lascivious Grampy.
"Dad, every time you tell me something about yours and mum's sex life, a fairy gets its wings ripped right off," says Della at one point, as her father makes the first of many off-colour comments. Meanwhile a drive past Wolverhampton's landmark brewery Banks's on their way a family foraging trip on the local Common brings forth the proud observation "We're not southern twats. We're not northern twats. We're Midlands twats". And when Aretha and Germaine are set upon by a trio of local lads, Aretha's response is to tell them: "There are CCTV cameras everywhere you know, George Orwell's 1984 was entirely prescient". It sounds even better delivered in a thick Wolverhampton accent.
From start to finish it's utterly foul-mouthed but brilliantly so, and there are more belly laughs in the opening five minutes than most comedies manage in an entire series. The dialogue is deliberately mannered (see above) but it's the best way for the Moran sister to weave their magic - and it's an appropriate way for this most unconventional of families to speak. Think Shameless-meets-The Sarah Connor Chronicles, with a large dose of Shane Meadows thrown in for good measure.
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