Cuckoo, series 4 episode 1, review: there's still life and laughs in this daft family comedy

Cuckoo (BBC One) got off to a joyful start, two years on from the happy-ever-after ending of its third series. Hyper-enthusiastic American Dale (Taylor Lautner) was still riding love’s euphoric wave after securing his relationship with Rachel (Esther Smith), while her father Ken (Greg Davies) was thrilled to be nominated for Lichfield’s Lawyer of the Year award. 

This haphazard family sitcom has been a quiet success ever since it began in 2012; it was something of an oddity for having a fresh-out-of Saturday Night Live American comedian as its eponymous star. Andy Samberg appeared for that first series as the dippy hippy that Rachel brought home, having met him while travelling and hastily got married – much to the confusion of her very British parents (played by Davies and Helen Baxendale).

But when commitments took Samberg elsewhere (to the Emmy-winning comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine), he was killed off and another unlikely American was cast instead – “Different guy. Just as Cuckoo,” went the line. 

Best known for playing a studly werewolf in the Twilight films, Taylor Lautner proved his comedy chops as the sweetly naive Dale, who came looking for his long-lost father Cuckoo and was kindly taken in by the family. Then, at the end of series three, after  a lot of sidetracking, Dale and Rachel, slightly awkwardly, got together.

Cuckoo’s formula – Ken’s ego blinding himself to his flaws and Dale making rash, nonsensical decisions – remained as true as ever in this opening episode. But one of the delights of Cuckoo is its ability to revel in its coarse daftness. Dale’s decision to take a job as a human statue during the local awards ceremony led to near-fatal skin asphyxiation when  he covered his entire body in paint (“he’s gone and done a Goldfinger!” cried another human statue).

And when Ken thought that he’d won the award (of course, this being a British sitcom, he was mistaken), he took the opportunity to triumphantly dress down his more impressive female colleague for, he believed, conspiring to take over from him while he was on paternity leave. “You have betrayed the sisterhood!” he bellowed. “You shower of s--thouses.”

The chaos does occasionally get  a bit much, and it would be nice if writers Robin French and Kieron Quirke gave their female stars a better share of the jokes. But, even into its fourth run, this is a solid comedy that, unusually, still manages to find life – and fun – in its format.