May Contain Nuts, Thursday 9pm, ITV1

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:

So, you move into a new neighbourhood and the first person you met is a posho mother called Ffion who is prone to bragging about her child's superior abilities ("Miss Pearson singled out his particular aptitude for dinosaur-based play"), sneering at the local comprehensive ("They should bulldoze the whole place and drive them over the border into Lambeth. Worked for the Israelis") and cheating at the school sport sports day ("you just can't get running spikes for children under five").

What do you do? Run away as fast as possible? Laugh at her and carry on with your hitherto trouble-free life? Alice Chaplin, the protagonist of new two-part ITV1 comedy May Contain Nuts, did neither, apparently realising that she was the one who had to change.

Alice's next realisation was that her 11-year-old was going to have trouble passing the entrance exam for Chelsea College for Girls – the best private school in London, apparently – and despite husband David's gentle suggestions that she was taking things a bit seriously, she started young Molly on a crash learning course in an attempt to keep up with the Joneses, or the Jones-Fotherington-Smythes in this instance.

Then there was the "leap of faith" moment: Alice, having discovered her daughter was a bit thick and was probably going to fail the exam, came up with the idea that being a diminutive lady – ah, hah, inspired casting, there, people! – she would be able to pass herself off as an 11-year-old and take the test instead of Molly, despite being 36. Leap, we did not.

Add in Alice cheating on her mock exam paper – we're not really sure why – and the supremely weird moment in which her husband confessed he was turned on by her 11-year-old's outfit, and you had a rather irritating piece of television. With some decent source material from John O'Farrell's original novel, this had the potential to be so much funnier.

Picture: ITV

Comments

[kaye]

this is the funniest thing ive watched in ages. i work in muswell hill and its scary how many of the parents are exactly like those in the programme.

[Anne of Tuckton]

I am obviously in the minority here as I enjoyed the programme and look forward to part two.

[G]

Haha! I feel exactly the same as Bogus Anon. I expected a 'I'm moaning myrtle!' at any moment.

[Gabby]

I enjoyed it...there's more important things to discuss than a TV programme and she is a really good actress....fun and i love her accent!!

[debbie darling]

it was an awful program!! i thought it was ment to be a comedy!! utter rubish.

[The Bogus Anon]

Couldn't get past the fact that Alice was moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter.

[Alan Salter]

I liked the look of this beforehand but after 15 minutes, I flipped over to watch cops with cameras.