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Debbie Fendon is a force to be reckoned with. A speed-walking, recently widowed stalwart of the local community, mother of one (the easily overwhelmed Harry), she is played by Dawn French with a mixture of the vicar of Dibley’s indefatigable energy, edged with a hint of the shimmering wildness that accompanied her best work in the days of French and Saunders. Debbie is the driving force in Simon Mayhew-Archer’s debut sitcom Can You Keep a Secret? – and that secret is that Debbie’s husband, William, was mistakenly declared dead after taking too much of his Parkinson’s medication, by a germ-phobic doctor who didn’t want to get too near the body. Debbie persuaded William to stay “dead” for the life insurance payout, which she now has in cash, in a large holdall under the stairs.
What kind of a husband could be persuaded to do such a thing, you wonder? But then William turns out to be played by Mark Heap, and anything becomes possible. William was always hermit-like and now it is simply enforced. “The wonderful thing about you,” Debbie says, “is that you might as well have been dead for the last 68 years.” When he does start longing for the occasional trip to the shops, she is baffled. “What are you going to start missing next? Laser Quest?”
Harry (Craig Roberts), who had been grieving deeply for his late father, is traumatised by both the deception and the criminality around it. Not least because his wife, Neha (Mandip Gill), is a police officer (albeit one whose time is mostly taken up by Pigfish, a local man with a propensity for sticking the nozzles of petrol pumps up his bum), and Harry can neither safely tell her the truth nor live comfortably with a lie.
Nevertheless, the cash is handy and buys his silence for a while. The script is careful to keep us on the Fendons’ side, noting that Debbie and William were denied the payout after his diagnosis and that the money is for normal expenses, not for them to live in the lap of luxury. They followed all the rules, says Debbie at one point, and what did it get them? “A dodgy boiler and a garden full of fox shit.”
There is an underlying melancholy – shading occasionally into bitterness – to Can You Keep a Secret? that anyone brought up on traditional British sitcoms will recognise and warm to. (Simon Mayhew-Archer has family form in the genre: his father, Paul, co-wrote The Vicar of Dibley with Richard Curtis.) This melancholy carries us over the more duff jokes (“You know how I feel about the banks after what they did to Noel Edmonds”, “You run this house like Guantánamo Bay. But with less humanity. Rumsfeld!”) and tireder set pieces: the agonisingly awkward speech Debbie makes at her husband’s memorial service, the hiding of William in the cupboard when the widows’ club comes round and he must wait until the narcoleptic member nods off before making his escape, and so on.
So, Harry pays the rent and treats himself to a jet-washer that I certainly hope Pigfish doesn’t hear about, but his guilt grows. Also fuelling the narrative tension are the blackmail notes that start arriving. Somebody else knows William is alive but will only keep the secret for £20,000.
There is business with disguises, jump scares, chocolate addiction, weak bladders and “You massive twat” as a repeated punchline. We are not breaking any new ground here. But that’s not always necessary; it would be exhausting if it were. Sometimes it’s enough to do the tried and tested stuff well, and together French and Mayhew-Archer pull it off. Heap’s inimitably weird presence is underused and William seems to come from a slightly different show, but Roberts and Gill do solid work.
Can You Keep a Secret? has charm, wit and warmth enough to work as soothing balm rather than riotously fun fare. Though if farce is your thing, you will probably find yourself edging more towards the latter and enjoy yourself very much. Happy 2026.
