and here is the Times review for this:
Laugh dear, it?s the only answer. Which brings us to last night?s other comedy of female neurosis, The Catherine Tate Show (BBC Two). As observational comedy goes, it?s not rip-roaringly funny. But it has its moments.
The characters and situations are exaggerated, and like all good comedy stereotypes, they ring true. Tate?s speciality is the peculiar insanities of women. There?s Steptoe?s twin sister, a racist foul-mouthed old bag who?s convinced the Polish home help is stealing her clothes. There?s the exhausted first-time mother who, on arriving at friends? for dinner and finding her baby finally asleep, insists on having supper in the car. There?s the neurotic wife who screams at the slightest noise; the gabby schoolgirl; the office bore.
Although the characters are well observed, the jokes themselves are a little soft. The show has none of the flamboyant insanity of Little Britain, forever ploughing little furrows of lunacy: the teenager who fancies his mate?s gran, the Scottish hotelier who thinks he?s in The Wicker Man. And it has none of the hormonal, psychotic edge of Smack the Pony, although the woman who can?t get drunk enough to have sex comes from the same comedy tree.
It also feels a little derivative, although that may just be down to bad timing: the gabby schoolgirl is a pale shade of Matt Lucas?s brilliant comic creation, Vicky, scourge of social workers everywhere, who swapped her baby for a Westlife CD. But then of course, as Vicky herself might say, comedy is a fing wot I don?t know nuffin about. But I do know what makes me laugh, and I?m afraid this didn?t quite do it.