Most critics like Mum, and they like it for the same reasons. The praise clusters on Stefan Golaszewski’s writing, which reviewers describe as slow, observational and truthful about the odd limbo that follows a bereavement, and on Lesley Manville as Cathy, whose polite, restrained widow several reviews treat as the reason the series works at all. Lisa McGrillis is picked out from the ensemble, and more than one critic notes how the scripts find real vulnerability under characters who are, on the surface, broad comic types.
The reservations are mild and the spread is narrow. The Telegraph finds the opening episode soothing rather than biting, leaning on familiar sitcom habits, though it expects Manville to deepen as the series goes on. The Guardian, otherwise warm, thinks it more grown-up than Golaszewski’s previous series but less rude, less visceral and less funny. Nobody dislikes it; the argument is only over how sharp it is.