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Sitcoms aren’t meant to go anywhere: the default setting is one location full of characters who keep resetting to zero. Few have followed that rule as faithfully as Two Doors Down, a low-key comedy set on a middle-class close on the outskirts of Glasgow and focusing on retirement-age couple Eric and Beth Baird (Alex Norton and Arabella Weir), whose quiet life is forever interrupted by their eccentric neighbours inviting themselves in. That might be why it’s stayed on air for more than a decade: it’s never essential but always entertaining enough. You know what you’re getting.
The show prefers to stay put in the Bairds’ lounge, and if it does venture elsewhere it will usually just be to someone else’s house – nothing flashy. Domestic trivia takes precedence over big events; laughs are more often from what’s said than big visual gags. Emotions are kept in check, too. Wry British comedy that plonks itself down on suburban sofas – Abigail’s Party, The Royle Family, Mum – tends to have wrenching pathos lurking, with the characters harbouring either desperate sadness or reserves of affection for each other that they ultimately can’t keep hidden. Two Doors Down doesn’t bother with all that. After years of getting to know them, Beth would still rather her neighbours didn’t pop in.
But pop in they will. After the death of co-creator Simon Carlyle, Two Doors Down ended in 2023 after seven seasons, but is now back for a festive episode that’s solely the work of Carlyle’s writing partner, Gregor Sharp. He keeps it simple by returning to the Baird house, with Beth once again answering the door and being disappointed to find chief gatecrasher Christine (Elaine C Smith) on the step. It’s late November, and yet the Bairds have their Christmas tree up! What are they playing at?
Having explained to Christine that they were in the loft having a clear out, saw the tree and thought why not, and they didn’t see why it would cause any fuss – they’re sitcom characters, so they never learn – Eric and Beth then have to go over the same ground with yuppie poser Colin (Jonathan Watson) and his rude, dipsomaniac other half Cathy (Doon Mackichan), sweet young Michelle (Joy McAvoy) and her blithe lunk of a hubby Alan (Graeme Stevely), and the Bairds’ son Ian (Jamie Quinn) and his boyfriend Gordon (Kieran Hodgson).
The first topic of conversation is, because she will not shut up about it, Christine’s imminent odyssey to Ireland to meet her long-lost family. She is across the key details: “Apparently, the cooked breakfasts on board the Stena Line are excellent. Irene up the high flats told me they serve a black pudding that is technically illegal on dry land.”
Two Doors Down has a lot of lines in that vein – reports of outlandish things said and done off-screen rather than dialogue flowing from the characters’ present situation. If you wanted to cry humbug you could say the former is a writer’s cheap shortcut, although Victoria Wood used to get away with it pretty well. The show’s other stock in trade is giving Cathy, Colin, Christine or Alan something baffling or insensitive to say, then showing us Eric, Beth or Michelle’s reaction face. There’s plenty of that as the talk moves on to Michelle’s pregnancy (Christine agrees that baby clothes are cute “until they soil them”), the refusal of charity shops to accept donations of secondhand pants, and how Gordon is getting on with his new life as a mature student, majoring in sociology and literature. “You’re no bothered about getting a job after, are you?” observes Colin.
The gang’s all here, and it’s reassuring to know that the gathering will follow a familiar pattern. Just as the mundane chat threatens to drag, a big faux pas looms, this time when woke brainbox Gordon – who’s already caused an amusing stir with his use of the word “ubiquitous” – weighs in on a debate about which seasonal pop song is best. His opinions on Band Aid and particularly the Pogues do not go down well: “You cannae even have a bit of homophobic swearing in a Christmas song any more!” blasts Colin. With the hilariously monstrous Cathy losing her thin veneer of civility – her calling Eric a “big stupid donkey” for no reason is a highlight, as is her inexplicable habit of subjecting Gordon to aggressive physical flirtation – a hysterical momentum starts to build.
A Christmas special might be the time to let this develop fully into farcical chaos – but no, it’s still a 30-minute run time, and so Two Doors Down retains its normal policy of cutting to the end credits just as it looks like exploding. It’s safely back where it started.
