Jury still out on`lovable rogue'

Britishcomedian Steve Coogan is generally a funny man.

His comedies have always mined the areas of social awkwardness and political incorrectness, with his roles as fictional television or radio host Alan Partridge in I'm Alan Partridge.

More recently, he starred as Tommy Saxondale in Saxondale, playing a former roadie with anger management and overenhanced self-image issues.

His new show, Sunshine (Sundays, 9.30pm on TV1), is something of a departure.

Sunshine was written by Craig Cash and Phil Mealey, the team behind the generally excellent Bafta award-winning The Royle Family.

Billed as a comedy-drama, Sunshine follows "Bing's" (Coogan) ongoing battle with a gambling addiction.

The difficulty with reviewing the first episode of a series is that some shows grow on you after initially not appealing.

Sunshine, it must be said, does not make you laugh.

The plot of the show has all three generations of the Crosby family affected by its breadwinner's inability to control his gambling.

"Lovable rogue" Bing, as his friends call him, has been fascinated with betting since he was a child, and that fascination does not go away as he reaches adulthood and fatherhood.

There are, it has to be said, some slightly annoying things about Sunshine.

It relies on the sort of salt-of-the-earth English working people made popular in films like Brassed Off, where the Grimethorpe Colliery Band withered at the hands of Margaret Thatcher.

That was fine at the time, but I'm well over it.

There are boxes to be ticked in such productions, including the bad karaoke scene, the picturesque but poverty-stricken street full of terrace houses, and the reference to children as "our Jason" or "our Kylie" in those accents from Manchester, or Liverpool, or Scotland, or somewhere.

That stuff aside, Sunshine eventually drags you in.

Bing starts getting the "final demand" notices in the mail, starts stealing the money his wife has set aside in her jewellery box, and when he gets conned out of 900, things start going downhill badly.

It is the drama aspect of Sunshine that eventually works, and will make me watch episode two, but the jury, at this stage, is still out.

Fans of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report - and everyone should be - will be happy to know both return to the Comedy Channel on April 6.

Both shows will apparently be fresh off the satellite feed on the same day as the US broadcast.