Marion & Geoff - Series One - Region 2

Through his monologues, we learn that Keith has a room in a student house where banging techno is played day and night; that in order to make the journey to see his two boys, he must make an overnight journey from London to Cardiff by car; that his only friend is a tollbooth operator (though the operator doesn't seem to know it) and that, although he's been driving a minicab for a while, he's yet to pick up a fare.

Keith's attempts to buy presents for his children generally backfire ("I've kept the receipts. I learned that from my old dad. He always used to say keep the receipts"), no more heartrendingly so than in an evidently disastrous attempt to pay a surprise visit to the newly attached Marion and the kids in Disneyland. As he hugs the tiny Winnie the Pooh puppets he's tried to give to his children, his uniformly chipper tone wavers momentarily and the comedy threatens to darken into something like tragedy. However, Keith's indomitable if inappropriate optimism eventually enables him to bumble through. Masterly in its veracity and Pooteresque banality, Marion & Geoff is as near-flawless as The Office.

On the DVD: Marion & Geoff on disc comes with an informative if somewhat giggly commentary, featuring Brydon and director and cowriter Hugo Blick. There's the Comic Relief special, in which Keith's cheque to the charity bounces with typically pitiful consequences and outtakes from the series, all of which would have merited inclusion in the final edit. --David Stubbs