Last night saw the start of a new six-part drama on BBC1 called Ordinary Lies. It is written by Danny Brocklehurst and centres around the goings on in a Car Showroom somewhere in the North-West of England.  I am not sure what I expected before it started but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I had enjoyed it by the time the credits were rolling at the end.  The star of this first episode was without stand-up comedian Jason Manford who played a car salesman called Marty, take a well deserved bow my son.

I’ll be honest and say that up to this point I have never been a massive fan of Jason Manford’s.  I can still remember being horrified one Christmas Day when as a family we all sat around the telly to watch one of his stand-up shows on DVD. All was fine and dandy until about half way through when he did this joke about male masturbation.  Rather than being funny it was really corny and unfunny.  I did not know where to look as my sixty-odd year old Mum watched it too, we duly ended up just switching it off.

Here though in his first main TV acting role, I thought Jason Manford played a blinder. The role of Marty, a hapless car salesmen who was having a severe mid-life crisis, it suited him down to the ground. He delivered all the car salesman bravado stuff with apparent ease and I genuinely found myself chuckling at his performance throughout it.  Granted an actor is only as good the lines given to him by the writer, but I thought Manford brought a lot to the part himself too.  I was also impressed how well he handled the emotional scenes towards the end.  Importantly, I believed him as a character.  For much of the time I largely forgot I was watching a stand-up comic trying his hand at a bit acting. Whoever cast him in this role need commending upon it in my opinion.

Although we also saw another story emerge that involved actress Jo Joyner playing deputy manager Beth(her husband has gone missing), like I say last night’s focused largely on the chaotic life of Car Salesman Marty. We see Marty going through some sort of mid-life crisis. His sales targets are repeatedly down and he keeps turning up late for work courtesy of going down the pub and having a skinful the night before. After getting a Final Warning at work for his repeated lateness we saw him get there late again the day after. Knowing he is done for if he goes in again late, Marty rings up work to offer up some excuse as to why he won’t be going in that day. Disastrously, the best he can come up with is that his wife has just died…oops ha ha. Events then quickly spiral out control and we see Marty trying to cover up his tracks so not to have the lie uncovered.  I thought his stealth like move to capture the postman before he delivered a load of ‘sympathy cards’ through their front door was very funny.  The girls from work knocking on his front door to see if he needed any help at this supposed very tragic time, involved him claiming his still alive wife was in fact his sister-in-law.  It was clever funny stuff albeit maybe a tad implausible.

For a time the lie of his wife dying works for Marty and comically we see his old confident self coming back in spades.  We see him triumphantly return home one day to tell his STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE WIFE, how his car sales figures were going through the roof.  His lies and mid-life crisis reached a zenith when saw him have a fling with a woman from work called Grace. I thought actress Rebecca Callard was marvelous in portraying this lonely accountant. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I think it was her idiosyncratic mannerisms and her unique delivery style that made her such an amusing character for me.

Eventually as we all knew it would do, his lies eventually caught up with Marty.  The discoverer of his big lie was secretary Kathy, played by the always fab Sally Lindsay. I must admit as an emotional Marty turned his car to face his garage, I did worry this drama was suddenly going to have a very dark ending. ie suicide.  To my relief we saw his wife meet him on the driveway just in time. Next we see Marty and his wife walking into his work to unveil his lie to everybody.

It wasn’t a spellbinding piece of television or anything, but at the same it was a very enjoyable watch.  I was chuckling throughout and somewhat surprisingly found myself being rather moved by it at the end.  My perception of Jason Manford has changed for the better due to his fine performance here.  I therefore look forward to watching episode two next week and seeing another entertaining ORDINARY LIE told! 3.5/5.