Friday Night Dinner

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Friday Night Dinner
Genre Comedy
Format Sitcom
Created by Robert Popper
Written by Robert Popper
Directed by Steve Bendelack
Martin Dennis
Starring Tamsin Greig
Paul Ritter
Simon Bird
Tom Rosenthal
Mark Heap
Opening theme "Animal" (Punks Jump Up Remix) by Miike Snow
Composer(s) "Meddle" by Little Boots
"Fot I Hose" by Casiokids
"1901" by Phoenix
"Believe E.S.P." by Deerhoof
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of series 3
No. of episodes 13 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Nira Park
Caroline Leddy
Kenton Allen
Producer(s) Robert Popper
Running time 25 minutes approx
Production company(s) Popper Pictures
Big Talk Productions
Distributor BBC Worldwide
Broadcast
Original channel Channel 4
Picture format 1080i (HDTV)
Audio format Stereo
Original run 25 February 2011 (2011-02-25) – present

Friday Night Dinner is a British television sitcom written by Robert Popper and starring Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird, Tom Rosenthal and Mark Heap.[1] The comedy is focused around the regular dinner experience of an British Jewish family (the Goodmans) on each Friday night. The first series aired from February 2011 on Channel 4. The series began airing in the U.S. on BBC America as of 30 July 2011.[2] The series began airing in Russia on 2x2 on 10 August 2012.[3]

Premise

Friday Night Dinner depicts Shabbat dinner in the secular Jewish Goodman family, reflecting writer and producer Robert Popper's own secular Jewish upbringing.[4]

Cast and characters

Regular

  • Tamsin Greig as Jacqueline "Jackie" Goodman: wife of Martin and mother of Adam and Jonathan. A grown-up woman with a teenage sense of humour. Funny, fiery and occasionally a bit saucy. Jackie is usually unimpressed by the antics of her husband and sons.
  • Paul Ritter as Martin Goodman: father of Adam and Jonathan, Martin is fond of going shirtless inside and out — he explains that he is "boiling" — and seems to have both a severe hearing problem and trouble paying attention. He also appears to be deeply concerned with Adam's obtaining of a "female" and calls Adam and Jonny "bambinos", colloquialism for "bambino/bambini" (baby) in Italian. He is a very keen science lover and, in many ways, is socially inept. He also has a few rather odd habits, including eating out of the bin and generally collecting food scraps any way possible. His filthiness forms a main part of his character.
  • Simon Bird as Adam Goodman: Adam is the elder son. He is in his mid-20s and is trying to forge a career as a musician. Adam is nicknamed "Pusface" by Jonny and sometimes by Jackie. He is quite often the victim of mishap, and mostly the centrepiece around which the chaos moves.
  • Tom Rosenthal as Jonathan "Jonny" Goodman: Jonny is an estate agent for "Garvins", and the younger son. He's always trying to start fights with Adam and play practical jokes on him, causing Adam to retaliate. Adam nicknames Jonny "Pissface".
  • Mark Heap as Jim Bell: Jim is the Goodmans' neighbour who frequently appears on their front doorstep and is seemingly infatuated with, and therefore trying to stalk, Jackie. He does this by dropping hints to attempt to gain entry into the house. He is accompanied by his Belgian Shepherd,[5] Wilson, of whom he is irrationally afraid, despite Wilson being rather friendly. As well as this he seems to be quite socially incapable and constantly leaves gaps in conversation where nothing is said. This is added to by a seeming total ignorance of normal social rules, particularly when attempting to flirt with Jackie because he has a crush on her. In series 2 there is the suggestion that Jim has spent time in a secure psychiatric unit: he had been in hospital, 'wasn't allowed' to eat with a knife and had an extreme reaction to red paint believing it to be blood.

Recurring

  • Frances Cuka as Nelly (often referred to as "Gran"): Jackie's mother. Her sporadic deafness and lack of situational awareness often cause acute comic embarrassment.

Episode list

Series overview

Series Episodes Originally aired DVD release date
Series premiere Series finale Region 2
1 6 25 February 2011 (2011-02-25) 8 April 2011 (2011-04-08) 15 October 2012 (2012-10-15)[7]
2 6 7 October 2012 (2012-10-07) 11 November 2012 (2012-11-11) 17 March 2014 (2014-03-17)[8]
Christmas Special 1 24 December 2012 (2012-12-24) N/A
3 6 February 2014 (February 2014) 2014 (2014) N/A

Series 1 (2011)

The first series premiered on 25 February 2011 and ran for 6 episodes.

# Title Director Writer Original air date
1 "The Sofabed" Steve BendelackRobert Popper25 February 2011 (2011-02-25)
Jackie and Martin are having a clear-out, but Martin is reluctant to chuck away all his tatty old magazines, and ropes in Jonny to secretly hide the stash back at his flat. Jackie is very excited because it's the final of MasterChef; Jonny thinks it's MasterShit. Jackie is trying to get on with dinner, but their slightly odd neighbour Jim keeps interrupting to use their toilet as he's broken his own loo in mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, Martin has forgotten a man (Matthew Holness) is coming to pick up their old sofabed. Will Jackie even get to see her precious Masterchef? [9] 
2 "The Jingle" Steve BendelackRobert Popper4 March 2011 (2011-03-04)
In the second episode, when Adam and Jonny come home to find Martin secretly peering into his underpants with a magnifying glass, they're desperate to find out what he's looking at. Also Jackie is just trying to have a nice Friday night, but Jim - the neighbour who's terrified of his own dog - keeps interrupting the meal. Martin takes Adam - who's single - into the toilet to have a private chat about 'females'. Soon the whole family are in the loo quizzing poor Adam, and Jonny is loving it. Lastly the secret behind Martin's pants-peering is revealed.[10] 
3 "The Curtains" Steve BendelackRobert Popper11 March 2011 (2011-03-11)
Jackie is delighted with the new set of curtain she has bought, but the boys and Grandma think they're horrible leaving Jackie annoyed. Meanwhile, Martin drops Jackie's beef casserole all over the kitchen floor. It looks disgusting yet Martin scoops it back into the dish. The boys are unsurprisingly not happy about their meal. Later, the argument about the curtains spreads, and Jonny leaves in a huff to go to the pub with Adam joining him only to get there and share a quarter-of-a-pint and a chat with Jim. At home, Jackie and Grandma are still not talking, so it rests with Adam to resolve the family argument - can he save the day? [11] 
4 "The Dress" Steve BendelackRobert Popper25 March 2011 (2011-03-25)
When Jackie finds out that Martin didn't throw away his old boxes of science magazines in their clear-out, she goes mad and Martin builds a bonfire and promises he'll burn them all. Instead Martin is only pretending to burn them and he is squirrelling the boxes off to his shed/lad's pad in the garden. Jackie is excited as her best friend, Val (Tracy-Ann Oberman), is popping around with her new dress for her daughter Karen's wedding. Adam and Jonny are convinced Karen has a face like a foot. Meanwhile, Jim's dog Wilson goes missing, leaving Jim distraught. Later, Val comes round and she looks just like Jackie: similar hair, similar clothes and - according to Martin - 'similar bottoms'. She tries on her dress which leaves the ladies in their element and the men supremely bored. Will Jim ever find Wilson, and will Jackie venture once again into Martin's shed to discover the truth behind his 'pretend bonfire'?[12] 
5 "The Mercedes" Steve BendelackRobert Popper1 April 2011 (2011-04-01)
It's Adam's birthday. As he arrives home, a silver Mercedes almost runs him over. Inside is Sheila Bloom (Frances Barber) aka 'Bitchface' as Adam and his family call her. 'Bitchface' is famously obsessed with her Mercedes, and after some catty remarks about Adam's 'Yugo' ('Err... it's a Nissan'), she speeds off. Martin reveals that he used to have "a thing" with Bitchface years ago. The boys can't believe it. Jackie's not happy. Later, the family abandon dinner and go for a Chinese, but Bitchface is there. An awkward chat ensues, and finally Martin reveals exactly what he got up to with her...[13] 
6 "The Date" Steve BendelackRobert Popper8 April 2011 (2011-04-08)
Adam comes home to find the house looking immaculate, with classical music playing in the living room, Jackie's posh bowls on the dinner table, Dad in a smart suit, and - most mysteriously - the table set for five. The doorbell rings and in comes Tanya Green (Tuppence Middleton), a girl Jackie has been trying to fix up with Adam for months. What follows is possibly the most excruciating family dinner scene of all time. Meanwhile, Jim has been locked out as his dog, Wilson, has swallowed his keys. Inside, the blind date continues, but will Jackie's dream of an Adam and Tanya wedding come true?[14] 

Series 2 (2012)

A second six-episode series began airing in the UK on Sunday 7 October 2012. A Christmas Special[15] aired in December 2012.

# Title Director Writer Original air date
1 "Buggy" Martin DennisRobert Popper7 October 2012 (2012-10-07)
When Jonny finds Adam's old diary, he learns a terrible secret: when Adam was 11, he secretly dumped Jonny's beloved 'Pandy' panda bear toy in the outside bin, never to be seen again. This unleashes a war in the house, with Jonny threatening to destroy Adam's equally beloved old rabbit toy, 'Buggy'. Fights rage in every room, with Mum and Dad unable to control their two twenty-something sons, who have become 13 again. Desperate to hide his precious comfort toy from his angry brother, Adam gives Buggy to just about the worst person possible: neighbour Jim. Meanwhile, Dad will not stop sneezing on everything - 'He sneezed on a baby today - so embarrassing,' says Mum. Later, when dinner is served, Dad sneezes over all the food and Mum's delicious Friday night dinner is ruined. But what happens when hopeless Jim accidentally loses Buggy in a lake? And why is Jim speaking Chinese? 
2 "Mr Morris" Martin DennisRobert Popper14 October 2012 (2012-10-14)
The boys are excited, because grandma is coming for dinner, and tonight she's bringing her new boyfriend. 'He's not her boyfriend,' says mum, he's her 'male companion'. 82 year-old Lou Antony Morris is a horrible, vain man, who sports a trilby, a Hitler-ish moustache, and is obsessed with cleanliness - wiping his hands on the bathroom curtains when there's no hand towel. Mr Morris is also the world's worst driver, parking his battered old car right up to the front doorstep, smashing his headlamp. None of the family can see what lovely grandma sees in him. Dad can't stand the man and hides in his shed (while rifling through his box of fossils, saying that he's 'looking for trilobites'). But none of the family are quite prepared for what happens when Mr Morris suddenly loses his temper... 
3 "The Loft" Martin DennisRobert Popper21 October 2012 (2012-10-21)
To get out of cleaning the loft with Dad and Adam, Jonny claims to have dislocated his shoulder. But when Adam discovers he's lying, he threatens to tell mum immediately. "Fine," says Jonny, '"Then I'll just tell her all the grotty details of what you got up to with Hayley Posner". Adam is horrified. Hayley was Adam's blind date - the niece of his Mum's best friend Val - and he slept with her and then never called back, "because she smelt like Mum". Mum mustn't find this out, so Adam has to let Jonny get away with his pretend bad shoulder. Meanwhile Mum and Dad are not on speaking terms. There's been a terrible argument. Dad tells the boys that the reason - much to their horror - is 'sexual'. But what exactly he got up to, no one will tell them. Val (Tracy Ann-Oberman), comes round for dinner to lend mum moral support, as mum's argument with Dad escalates.What is mum and dad's terrible secret? And will mum and dad find out all about Jonny and Adam's secrets too? All this, and a visit to the unfriendliest pub in the world - The Black Boy. 
4 "The New Car" Martin DennisRobert Popper28 October 2012 (2012-10-28)
Martin is very excited. He's just bought a new fax machine. The boys can't believe it 'What's the point of using a fax machine when you've got email?' they ask. 'So you don't have to read everything off a bloody screen,' replies dad. Jonny, who's an estate agent, has been given a company car - the uncoolest car possible. It has a giant, estate agent-themed, fake brick roof on top. Adam calls it a 'house'. Mum soon learns that Jonny bagged the car because he'd been sleeping with his boss, the much older Liz (Lesley Vickerage). Mum is not happy, and an awkward scene arises when the family bump into Liz outside Jonny's office. Meanwhile mum has put dad on a diet - 'no chocolate, no cheese, no cakes' for two weeks, but dad has made the boys smuggle in food for him, which he keeps hidden in the downstairs loo. Jim pops round with his dog Wilson. He's drunk, as he's celebrating Wilson's birthday. ('Wilson is either 4 or 9'). Jim has even made Wilson a birthday cake. Later, returning from a 'family spin' in Jonny's car, the family find something awful has happened to their house... 
5 "The Yoghurts" Martin DennisRobert Popper4 November 2012 (2012-11-04)
Jonny is in a real pickle: he wants to split up with his 43-year-old girlfriend/boss, Liz, but is too scared to do so. Adam, meanwhile, is happy to keep teasing him about her age ('I'll switch the stair lift on'). Grandma offers Jonny some advice - 'Take her out dancing' - before showing him how to dance in the kitchen. While they dance to the music on the radio, it transpires that it's just the music for the news headlines, and before long, Jonny and Grandma are actually dancing to the news. Adam is loving it. Meanwhile, Dad has been drying fish under the stairs (Dad: 'Have you never had dried fish before?' 'Not from a cupboard' replies Adam). Then Grandma gets locked in the boot of Adam's car and everything changes. How will they get her out? And as if that isn't bad enough, Jonny's girlfriend, Liz turns up at the house. 
6 "The Mouse" Martin DennisRobert Popper11 November 2012 (2012-11-11)
The boys come home to find the house in a real state. The builders have been in, and everywhere they look, there's mess. On top of this, there's a mouse in the house, and mum is hiding in the shed. Dad - who's clueless in the kitchen - is left in charge of dinner ('I might as well be boiling a table'). But when Jim pops round to see if he can help around the house, something quite terrible happens to him, and mum is forced - out of guilt - to ask Jim over for dinner. This is Jim's happiest moment ever - finally, his first ever Friday night dinner with the Goodmans. Dad and the boys are livid with mum for asking him round. What follows is an excruciating dinner scene; along with Jim's peculiar eating habits ('I prefer to tear my food'), Jim's conversation skills have a lot to be desired ('Martin, are you circumcised?' he asks an unsuspecting dad). Things get even worse very quickly, as Jim leaves a trail of destruction in the house... 

Christmas Special (2012)

Title Director Writer Original air date
"Christmas Special" Martin DennisRobert Popper24 December 2012 (2012-12-24)
It's Christmas Day. Mum has made a Christmas dinner. The boys are delighted that Grandma is coming round, but dismayed that Martin's mother aka "Horrible Grandma" (Rosalind Knight) is coming too. Horrible Grandma turns up with her equally horrible dog. 

Series 3 (2014)

In May 2013 Tom Rosenthal confirmed that a third series will be filmed in September 2013.[16] The filming finished in November 2013 and the series is scheduled to air in February 2014.[17] In the third series Adam gains a new female admirer - an 11-year old girl, Jonny gets the world's worst tattoo, Dad gives the boys a graphic lecture on sex education, Mum practises being a counsellor on her horrified family, Grandma goes back out with the terrifying Mr Morris, Jim accidentally swallows Wilson's sleeping pills, and... there's a wedding.

American remake

In September 2011, Deadline Hollywood announced that Greg Daniels, who had adapted The Office for American television, would spearhead an American remake of the series for the broadcast network NBC.[18] The remake was picked up for a pilot, written by Daniels and directed by Ken Kwapis[19] and starring Allison Janney and Tony Shalhoub as the mother and father.[20] The pilot did not go to series.

DVD release

The first series of Friday Night Dinner was released on DVD on 15 October 2012.[7] The second series will be released on DVD on 17 March 2014.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Plunkett, John (12 February 2010). "Tamsin Greig and Pulling's Paul Ritter to star in Channel 4 comedy". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 February 2011. 
  2. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner on BBC America". Retrieved 4 August 2011. 
  3. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner on 2x2". Retrieved 1 August 2012. 
  4. ↑ Saner, Emine (4 March 2011). "Tamsin Greig: 'I always think I'll never work again'". The Guardian. 
  5. ↑ Fletcher, Alex (25 March 2011). "Mark Heap ('Friday Night Dinner')". Digital Spy. Retrieved 26 March 2011. 
  6. ↑ "Tracy-Ann Oberman: 'We've discovered a British Jewish comedy voice'". Digital Spy. 21 November 2012. Retrieved 5 October 2012. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Friday Night Dinner [DVD]". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Friday Night Dinner - Series 2 [DVD]". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  9. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner - Series 1 - Episode 1 - The Sofabed". Channel 4. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  10. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner - Series 1 - Episode 2 - The Jingle". Channel 4. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  11. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner - Series 1 - Episode 3 - The Curtains". Channel 4. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  12. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner - Series 1 - Episode 4 - The Dress". Channel 4. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  13. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner - Series 1 - Episode 5 - The Mercedes". Channel 4. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  14. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner - Series 1 - Episode 6 - The Date". Channel 4. Retrieved 2013-11-11. 
  15. ↑ Sperling, Daniel (12 March 2012). "'Friday Night Dinner' returning for autumn series, Christmas special". Digitalspy.co.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2012. 
  16. ↑ "Friday Night Dinner series three confirmed". Xposé Entertainment. TV3. 2013-05-03. Retrieved 2013-05-11. 
  17. ↑ "'Friday Night Dinner' to return for third series on Channel 4". Digital Spy. 2013-05-09. Retrieved 2013-05-11. 
  18. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (6 September 2011). "Greg Daniels To Adapt British Comedy 'Friday Night Dinner' For NBC". Deadline.com. Retrieved 4 February 2012. 
  19. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (3 February 2012). "Ken Kwapis Set To Direct NBC Pilot 'Friday Night Dinner', Reunites With Greg Daniels". Deadline.com. Retrieved 4 February 2012. 
  20. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (7 February 2012). "Allison Janney & Tony Shalhoub To Star In Greg Daniels' NBC Pilot 'Friday Night Dinner'". Deadline.com. Retrieved 7 February 2012. 

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