--- title: "Friday Night Dinner" year: 2011 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/friday-night-dinner" fi1m_score: 74 critics_score: 60 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-17T19:49:39.980847+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T19:49:40.958108+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Friday Night Dinner (2011) Created by Robert Popper · 30m · MPA TV-14 · Comedy **Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 60 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* A father with no shirt, a neighbour who will not go home, and a dinner nobody gets to finish > Robert Popper’s sitcom does one thing, thirty-six times, and does it well: two grown sons come home for Friday dinner, their father takes his shirt off, and the meal goes wrong. Paul Ritter is the reason it lasted six series. ## Synopsis Every Friday, Adam (Simon Bird) and Jonny Goodman (Tom Rosenthal), two grown brothers, drive back to their parents’ house in suburban London for the Jewish family’s Friday night dinner. Their mother Jackie (Tamsin Greig) wants one nice meal at the table with her boys. Their father Martin (Paul Ritter) has taken his shirt off because he is boiling and is eating something he found in the bin. The brothers are already hiding salt in each other’s water. Then the doorbell goes: it is Jim (Mark Heap) from next door, with his dog Wilson, a question that will not wait and a hopeless devotion to Jackie. The food, when it arrives, is rarely the point. ## Review Robert Popper’s sitcom has one idea and never wavers from it. Two grown brothers, Adam (Simon Bird) and Jonny Goodman (Tom Rosenthal), go home to their parents every Friday for dinner. Their mother Jackie (Tamsin Greig) has cooked. Their father Martin (Paul Ritter) has taken his shirt off. Something goes wrong before the food reaches the table. Popper wrote all thirty-six episodes, six series of six between 2011 and 2020, and the shape of the last is the shape of the first. It is small, well made and reliably funny, and if you like your comedy in one house with the same five people in it, it will see you through a great many evenings. Ritter is the reason to watch. Martin Goodman is always boiling, so the shirt comes off in the hall before anyone has sat down, and he cannot see food thrown away without rescuing it, so the bin is a second larder. He says “shit on it” when things go wrong, which is about once a scene. Ritter does not play him as a clown; he plays a man entirely at ease and puzzled that anyone minds, and the joke is the contentment. Greig gives Jackie the patience of a woman who has run this evening for thirty years and still hopes it will go well. She greets the boys with “hello bambinos” and spends the rest of the episode saying “Martin” on a rising note. Bird plays Adam close to the put-upon boy he played in [*The Inbetweeners*](https://film.one/tv/the-inbetweeners) (2008), older and no wiser. Rosenthal’s Jonny is the sharper brother, the one who gets the salt into the other’s water first. Their war is fought in playground terms: names, hidden salt, a hand clamped over a mouth. They have jobs and flats, and the moment they cross the doorstep they are twelve again. The pranks are exact, and the parents never notice them, because parents do not. Mark Heap’s Jim, from next door, arrives in most episodes with his dog Wilson, of whom he is frightened, and a question that could have waited until Monday. He is in love with Jackie and cannot look at her. Heap plays a man whose every sentence sets off with confidence and has to be rescued halfway through, and in the first series we laughed hardest at him. By the fourth we were wincing for him and wanting the script to let him win once, and it never quite does. Martin Dennis and Steve Bendelack direct it as single-camera farce with no studio audience, almost entirely inside one house: hall, kitchen, dining room, garden. The camera sits at about table height and the cuts land on faces rather than lines, so Ritter’s calm after a disaster gets the laugh the disaster set up. Each episode is thirty minutes and built the same way: a guest or a problem arrives early, dinner is delayed, somebody ends up in the garden. The guests, among them Frances Barber, John Sessions and Paul Kaye as a rabbi, are absorbed by the house rather than allowed to change it. Watched one a week, as broadcast, the repetition is the pleasure; you know the shirt is coming off and the doorbell is coming. Watched three in a row it turns into wallpaper, and by the third episode of an evening we noticed we were smiling at things we had laughed at an hour earlier. The show has nothing to say about families beyond the observation that they are the same every week. Whether that is its point or its limit depends on how many you have just watched. Critics have never agreed on it; the reviews run from adoration to something close to disgust. We think the ones who found it bleak were looking for a story, and there is not one. *The Royle Family* (1998) never left the sofa and found something sad there. Popper has no sadness in him. The Goodmans are happy, the house is warm and nobody is upset for longer than a scene. Take it as it was made, one or two at a time, with someone who has a family of their own to recognise. It carries a 15 certificate. Nobody in it ever finishes a meal, and after thirty-six episodes we had stopped expecting them to. *Fi1m score 74, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics warm to Friday Night Dinner, and the praise gathers around the same things: the weekly dinner that goes wrong in the same ways, the family’s specific habits, and the cast. Paul Ritter’s Martin is the performance named most often, with the parents and sons admired as an ensemble. Several reviews argue that the repetition is the point rather than a weakness, and that the show gets its laughs from how reliably the evening falls apart. The reservations cluster on whether the premise can carry a series. The Guardian finds the opening episode underwhelming and not funny enough for its cast, and Radio Times thinks the farce wears thin quickly. The Telegraph goes furthest, calling one series bleak and a catastrophe, chiefly for a subplot involving a child. The spread is wide, and it runs with time: the coolest notices judge the first episode, while the warmest look back over the whole run. Mark Heap’s neighbour divides them too. ### Reviews we read (8) - **The AV Club**, Myles McNutt (A-): The critic finds the series develops into a charming and energetic comedy thanks to its simple, repetitive premise of weekly family dinners that spiral into chaos. The familiar rhythms of family interactions and recurring character traits are singled out as the main source of its appeal and success. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/friday-night-dinner-1798169088) - **The i Paper**, Jeff Robson (75/100, inferred): The critic praises the show's character-based humour and the strong performances from the central cast, particularly the parents and sons, while noting some familiar sitcom tropes and less effective elements like the neighbour's mannerisms. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/friday-night-dinner-channel-4-review-still-a-delicious-mixture-of-slapstick-and-acid-after-five-series-151444) - **The Times**, Andrew Billen (60/100, inferred): The new sitcom has specificity going for it and asserts that all families are funny in their own way, with Paul Ritter's detailed performance as the eccentric dad standing out, though it may be funnier to those familiar with the family. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/weekend-tv-friday-night-dinner-r7kt977qlm5) - **Radio Times**, Alison Graham (50/100, inferred): The critic finds the episode's farce and outrage wear thin quickly but singles out the guest actor Harry Landis for his gloriously awful performance as the mean-spirited boyfriend. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-5fk1oc/friday-night-dinner-season-2/) - **The Guardian** (40/100, inferred): The opening episode of the new sitcom is particularly underwhelming, like a less interesting version of Grandma's House, with a premise that is not funny enough despite a good cast. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/26/first-cut-teen-horse-whisperers) - **The Telegraph**, Jake Wallis Simons (10/100, inferred): The critic found the series bleak and depressing, calling it a catastrophe due to its plot and humor that fell flat, particularly an uncomfortable subplot involving a child character. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10906830/Friday-Night-Dinner-review-a-catastrophe-on-stilts.html) - **Den of Geek**, Louisa Mellor (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the show's insight into family dynamics through its highly specific, eccentric characters and habits. It highlights the core Goodman family's believable oddities and the standout performances, especially Paul Ritter as Martin and Mark Heap as Jim. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/friday-night-dinners-goodmans-are-the-perfect-horrible-comedy-family/) - **Digital Spy**, Ian Sandwell (80/100, inferred): The review defends the show's repetitive structure as its strength, delivering reliable comedic chaos and strong ensemble chemistry. It notes the familiar format keeps the series fresh and engaging through clever escalations and surprises. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a31940356/friday-night-dinner-season-6-review/) ## Details - **Created by:** Robert Popper - **Creator:** Robert Popper - **Director:** Martin Dennis, Steve Bendelack - **Writer:** Robert Popper - **Cast:** Simon Bird as Adam Goodman; Tom Rosenthal as Jonny Goodman; Tamsin Greig as Jackie Goodman; Paul Ritter as Martin Goodman; Mark Heap as Jim; Tuppence Middleton as Tanya; Lesley Vickerage as Liz; Frances Barber as Sheila Bloom - **Runtime:** 30m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-14 - **Release (the US):** 25 February 2011 - **Genres:** Comedy - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMtMjZCAhHA ## Where to watch in the US - BritBox: streaming, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Apple TV: add-on, hd - Apple TV: buy, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, DE, GB, IE, IN, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Royle Family* (1998): Another family that never leaves one room, with the sadness Popper leaves out. - *Arrested Development* (2003), Fi1m 87: An American family of adults behaving like children, with running gags built to be repeated. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/arrested-development.md) - *Shtisel* (2013): An Israeli family drama about Friday dinners and the fights around them, played straight. - *Gavin & Stacey* (2007), Fi1m 80: Two families, one wedding, and parents who embarrass their children with the same warmth. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/gavin-and-stacey.md) - *Fawlty Towers* (1975), Fi1m 90: The model for British farce in one building, twelve episodes and not one wasted. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/fawlty-towers.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/friday-night-dinner