Writer and director Bryce Hart’s sitcom Only Child is fairly generic on paper: prodigal son returns to small town to reconnect with ageing parent. But it’s the minutiae and pathos that make this sitcom so binge worthy, and, ultimately, truly affecting.
Greg McHugh portrays Richard Pritchard, a mid-level actor returning to the small northern town of Forres in Aberdeenshire to visit his widower father Ken (Gregor Fisher). The two share, it’s an understatement to say, a fractious relationship, and there’s a lot of the traditional crossed wires and curse words.
Soon though, it becomes apparent that Ken’s little eccentricities are potentially the start of dementia. So will Richard, on the cusp of career greatness when offered a Scandinavian drama, stay put in the middle of nowhere, or take the offer of a lifetime? Divided loyalties are a dramatic cliche, but McHugh invests Richard with charm and integrity, even as his dad drives him to distraction.
Hart’s writing contains some excellent scenes, involving golf club snobbery, thwarted romance, incomprehensible barflies, and a surprise birthday for Ken that’s barely registered by him.
McHugh and Fisher make a brilliant double act: here, the former leans into an exasperated kindness, while the latter eschews his trademark Weegie stereotype for an ailing teddy bear who’s prone to little outbursts.
The town is populated by local eccentrics and “petty thief louts” as Mark E Smith had it. I’m particularly fond of the local bar staff, a couple who are morbidly obsessed with true crime.
Okay, the tone may be gentle and the pace languid, but there are belly laughs throughout, real heart and some painfully real exchanges in Hart’s script, with the odd touch of surrealism that elevates it from the usual trite sitcom formula. I’m intrigued to see where the second series takes the duo.
Available to watch on BBC i Player
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