New Jewish Sitcom Premieres in the UK
A new British sitcom “Friday Night Dinner,” inspired by Jewish family life, will debut in the UK this evening starring Tamsin Greig of the TV show “Green Wing” and Simon Bird from the teen-comedy “The Inbetweeners.”
Continuing the Jewish march to the mainstream in Britain, the show, created and written by Robert Popper, a Bafta-winning producer previously involved with “Peep Show,” “Bo’Selecta” and “South Park,” will center around the idea of Friday night Shabbat family dinners.
While the sitcom, set in North London, is based on Popper’s own family dynamics, he was reluctant to make the show too overtly Jewish. He told the UK’s Daily Telegraph: “Usually when I’ve seen Jewish things on TV, it’s always been people saying, ‘Oy vey’ and stuff like that, which is something I don’t really experience and didn’t seem modern and real to me.”
The show comes less than a year after the premier of Simon Amstell’s “Grandma’s House” — a much more obviously “Jewish” family show — but will be very different, says Popper.
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