The reviews are uniformly positive, and unusually so for a comedy that started life as a low-key mockumentary. Most critics praise the writing first: the boredom and small humiliations of village life are observed closely and, they agree, with affection rather than contempt. The Coopers’ performances as the cousins Kerry and Kurtan are singled out repeatedly, both for the deadpan idiocy and for the tenderness underneath it, particularly Kerry’s longing to be close to her father. Several reviewers admit to crying.
The spread is narrow. What reservations there are amount to footnotes: The Times notes an obvious debt to The Office and a streak of sentimentality, and the Evening Standard, the coolest of the seven, values it mainly as a comedy of the silent squirm. The Independent reads the second series as an allegory for Brexit Britain, a political weight the others do not put on it.