Gang's gay guessing games

THINK Coupling. Think Friends. Think This Life. Put them all together and you have this new series described as a comedy drama but which contains more of the former than the latter.

Shona and Conrad are wondering what it would be like to be married, a thought prompted by neither having had sex for several weeks. She warns that "just because we get married doesn't mean our lives will get less miserable". But he looks on the bright side, saying: "At least you will bring me my slippers every morning in your mouth".

Ah, the merry banter of friends over a pint in the pub. Shona and Conrad had an exploratory snog in the hope it would kill two birds with one stone - "save money on tissues and triple A batteries at the same time". Alas, this union was not meant to be, as Conrad is gay. He's also choosy. "He's hideous. If I wanted to have sex with someone like him I'd go on a Hoseasons holiday," he says, ensuring that at least one holiday company won't be advertising in the commercial break.

So we arrived at this week's theme - can you tell if someone is gay just by looking at them? The four friends sat around trying to guess who was gay and whether they could "turn" them.

Shona and Conrad ended up fighting over a good-looking chap named Glen. Conrad said he couldn't be gay because they had a conversation about drag racing in the toilets. Dominic suggested that a person's choice of TV news programme was an indication - straight people watch ITV, gay people watch Channel 4. Perhaps the most important question concerned the choice of exercise video, Tracy Shaw or Mr Motivator.

Charlie Martin's script was stuffed with funny lines, while the mostly unknown - to me, at least - cast are obviously heading for bigger things. It'll be interesting to see if the remaining episodes develop the characters or simply stick to a series of one-liners. One constant will be the lifestyle survey facts and figures that trigger the friends' dilemmas. The opener told us that 34 per cent of gay men say they've had sex with a woman. One in four claim that's what turned them.