Television comedies featuring the lower classes, and those less fortunate generally, have a long and honourable history.
We snigger at the stories of teenage pregnancy, giggle at the petty crime, and raise our eyebrows knowingly when faced with the poverty-inspired travails.
In a New Zealand context, the genre of the loving look at the poor, dysfunctional and criminally minded resulted in one of the country's best comedy-dramas, Outrageous Fortune.
The United Kingdom has Shameless.
Now entering its sixth season (August 12 on UKTV), Shameless has many parallels with Outrageous Fortune and tuning in is just as and, dare I say it, maybe more worthwhile.
The show follows the adventures of the Gallagher family, resident in one of those appalling housing projects where tower blocks rise like broken teeth cutting through the infected gums of architectural misadventure.
Or something like that, anyway.
The joy, though, behind Shameless is the guiltless glee in which our heroes defraud the welfare system, steal from the milkman, consume alcohol and drugs, and generally negotiate their lives with the sort of value system that would have a Presbyterian eating his hat.
Each episode begins with a voice-over by one of the characters, highlighting the themes of the episode.
In episode one, that voice-over comes from a well-intoxicated Frank Gallagher (David Threlfall), the generally drunk and drugged patriarch of the family, a man with seven children whose simple dream is the freedom to spend his life in the pub.
"What sound on Earth could ever replace kids needing money and wives in your face?
"Cos this, people reckon, and me included, is why pubs and drugs were kindly invented," he opines.
Series six, it has to be said, strays slightly from series one to five, when it goes a little Gabriel Garcia Marquez-magic-realism in episode one.
Frank and his wife have a baby and they take on a terrific Eastern European Catholic priest for the baptism, a priest who has strong views on interdenominational affairs.
"Not weak like Church of England, lady priests, and embracing of the homosexualists," he says of his faith.
The baby, surprisingly, speaks, and is less than happy with its lot.
"Look at the pair of ya, this estate; what chance have I got?"Challenged to find five good men or the baby will continue its hunger strike, Frank sets off on his quest, with the result perhaps a little soppy for Shameless.
His journey, though, is amusing as he uncovers grannies snorting cocaine in the pub, the less-than-savoury sexual antics of his neighbours and generally criminal or not-strictly-ethical behaviour all round.
Created and with writing credits by Paul Abbott, whose early life apparently was not far from his creation, Shameless is worth pursuing through its sixth season.
