Review of Love & Marriage

Once you've exhausted the seam of trying to remember what other TV series all the principals have been in there is precious little to engage the attention in "Love & Marriage". Seen most recently as "Last Tango in Halifax" with an equally familiar cast,it concerns the fortunes of a multi - generation family and their trials and tribulations. It must have seemed a good idea at the time,but the future of these episodic comedy - drama big name series is all behind them. "Love & Marriage",like most of the genre is neither comedic nor dramatic enough and depends on the pulling power of the actors involved for its audience. The versatile Miss A.Steadman does not seem to me as if her heart is in it as the matriarch,hiding behind the standard RADA "Brummie" accent,i.e. soporific monotonous droning. Miss C.Imrie does her usual middle - class schtick which I've no doubt she would do if she was cast in "Juno and the Paycock". The lesser luminaries bother or not to do the accents,most settling for the vaguely Northern as heard interminably on TV. I squirmed my way through the first episode,which presumably was designed to attract my attention and induce a desire to watch the rest of the series.It signally failed to do so.