Catherine Shepherd

You either love Julia Davis or think her sick filth ought to be banned. Sally4Ever proved yet again that there is nobody working today - or at least nobody with the same platform - with a blacker sense of humour. Sally (Catherine Shepherd) was already surrounded by monsters: her loser of a boyfriend (Alex MacQueen) and tricky colleagues played by Julian Barratt and Felicity Montagu. Then Emma (Davis herself) arrived, a tornado of sex and bad intentions. Beneath the shagging, drugs, excrement, manipulation and malice were pockets of tenderness, but you had to look pretty hard to see them. Luckily there were also gales of laughter. NB If you have yet to see it, please do not watch it with your parents or children on Boxing Day and then write in to complain.

If you haven't been watching Sally4Ever, I'll make you

It has brought me back to the joys of TV comedy. It's a throwback to that agonising wait for each episode.

Julia Davis' pitiless comedy concludes. Sociopathic Emma (Davis) and fantastically pliant Sally (Catherine Shepherd, who heroically grounds the whole endeavour) are now married and, tonight, they meet the real-life, actual Sean Bean. Then an attack of food poisoning takes an unexpected turn. Few comedies are as unflinching.

Is Sally4Ever based on a true story?

American television could always use a healthy dose of British humor, and as Sally4Ever heads to HBO on Nov. 11, we'll be getting just that.

Sally4Ever review

The raunchy lesbian comedy is your new British obsession.

Sally4Ever: watch funny cringe comedy at your own risk

Created by British comedian Julia Davis, new series delivers some big laughs and whole lot of squirm-inducing moments.

Sally4Ever is one of the most joyous watches of the week. As might be expected from Julia Davis, it begins with a rough template for comedy and simply ratchets it up to beyond any tolerance. Hurrah. When sad-sack Sally (Catherine Shepherd, a lovely comedy actor playing it straight) has to witness her besotted boyfriend (Alex Macqueen) not only removing the scurf from his feet but then massaging and blow-drying his toes, it's awkward. After his abject tearful clinging proposal (she accepts, in the face of all available human evidence), he whips his dead mother's wedding dress out of his overorganised wardrobe, apologising for the yellowed stain - "she had an overactive gland", it's awkward. When he celebrates the cloying reluctance of her acceptance with strewn petals and an actionable notelet that would have him arrested in parts of my locale - "My Soulmate. My Partner. My Mother. My Lover. My Nurse, and my Clown"... it's time for Sally to embark on a filthily lesbian affair with Davis. Cue mayhem. It's not a watch for the faint-hearted or faint-brained, but, again, hurrah.

Sally4Ever episode 1 review

Even the most dedicated Davis fan might not be quite ready for this new Sky Atlantic series.

Julia Davis's latest series stars Catherine Shepherd (Peep Show) as a suburbanite who ditches her wet-blanket fiance (Alex Macqueen) for Davis's free-spirit artist. One graphic and comically overlong sex scene aside, nothing in this opener reaches Nighty Night's pitch-black peaks, but you suspect it is just getting started.