Motherland III:Maternal/Infernal.

A mildly inane comment about a Wagon Wheel by the side of a character's mother's grave. That was, sadly, the only moment that actually made me laugh out loud during the entire third series of Motherland (BBC2/iPlayer).

That's nowhere near a high enough hit rate and it's not as if series one and series two had ratcheted up the LOLs, GLAGs, PMSLs, and ROFLs so high I could forgive Holly Walsh, Helen Serafinowicz, and Barunka O'Shaughnessy, the show's writers even if, for some reason, I didn't switch off. Why do I continue to watch Motherland, a comedy that tries really hard to be funny and mostly fails, when it doesn't make me laugh?

I guess it mildly amuses me but then 'light entertainment' used to be my idea of Hell. Maybe I'm just getting old and happy to watch any old shit. But, again, that's unfair because Motherland isn't shit. It's just not as good as it could, and should, be. The subject matter is rife for humour, the writers are good, and the actors (the ones I've seen on other things) are all good too.

It seems like it tries too hard. The analogies between Covid and an infection of nits at the kid's school was so overplayed that it became painful. The Covid style press conference, the one way system, the jokes about patient zero and superspreaders? We got it first time - and it wasn't that funny then.

See also Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin) and her infatuation with her builder Garry (Robbie Gee). The comedy of cringe can be a genuinely great thing, Alan Partridge or The Office, but in scenes played out with Julia and Garry there is virtually no comedy and one hell of a lot of cringe. I did, I must admit, chortle gently when Amanda (Lucy Punch), in response to Kevin (Paul Ready) telling her she had "the best hair", delivered the typically vicious "can I quote you on that? Obviously not using your name".

From that you can tell, not much has changed in Amanda's world. A place where self-obsession is barely on nodding terms with self-awareness. She's upset about her ex-husband Johnny (Terry Mynott) meeting a new partner but her problems pale into insignificance alongside those of Meg (Tanya Moodie) who has been diagnosed with cancer.

A rather dark turn in such a light, slapstick, show and one that seems to have taken its toll on Meg's partner Bill (Anthony Head) who's started showing his age. Lucy, of course, patronises Meg relentlessly about the cancer while, at the same time, continuing to belittle her supposed friend Anne (Phillipa Dunne). Anne's pregnant again - but presumably this time she won't be choosing Lucy as godmother. Not least because she can't even remember the name of the child, Niamh, she is already godmother too.

Kevin's wife has asked for a divorce, Liz (Diane Morgan) is looking for a job, and Julia's mum Marion (Ellie Haddington) can no longer live independently and - much to Julia's annoyance, she's more concerned about having to share an en-suite - has moved in with her daughter and her husband Paul (Oliver Chris, whose screen appearances are now nearly as rare as any of the children).

Though the story of the nit outbreak and the jokes about Kevin learning to drive fall flat, I did find that the minutiae of realistic relationships was well observed. Kevin relating how his wife would complain about the way he dries his legs after a shower and Liz remarking that if sex was removed from her relationship with shepherd Sam (Tom Meeten) all that would be left is "drinking alcohol in a caravan".

As Amanda's mum, Felicity, Joanna Lumley (who else was ever going to play her?) gets an amusing Mother's Day cameo. Flicking through Tinder on a dinner date with her daughter, being horrified by working class people, and not even trying to hide her disappointment that Amanda hadn't booked The Riverside Cafe. After six series of Absolutely Fabulous, another show I watched that didn't make me laugh, you can imagine Lumley could have phoned the part in.

The mum's milieu of Budgens, squabbling over catchment areas, pink jogging bottoms, school gate gossip, and podiatrist appointments seems relatable enough but often cultural references are shoehorned in in an attempt to make the show more zeitgeisty than it actually is. I don't doubt that mums are aware of Normal People, Call Me By Your Name, Heston Blumenthal, Will Self, and TikTok but it seems unlikely that their conversations would be peppered by these references quite so lavishly.

It'd be fine if there was some kind of point to it but often the namedrops seem to be there just for the sake of it. The jokes, too, are so heavily signposted and often so laboured in their realisation that it feels like the viewer is being taken for a simpleton, unable to understand a more subtle form of humour.

At times, specifically with Meg's cancer and a racist pupil at school, it does seem like the show's writers are trying to inject some drama into the comedy (though, while they were doing issues perhaps they could have looked at those relating to the transgender community - one of the show's original writers and directors Graham Linehan certainly has some strong opinions about that - perhaps why he no longer works on the show and his wife Helen has divorced him and gone back to her maiden name of Serafinowicz) but that doesn't come off in the way it has in shows like Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Don't Forget The Driver, This Way Up, Gavin and Stacey, and even Only Fools and Horses.

Which is a shame. Motherland doesn't work as a drama and only flickers as a comedy. When it, admirably, tries to do both it's a stretch too far. Motherland tries so hard to do the right thing only to end up with a bloke like me slagging it off. In that respect at least, depressingly, it is very authentic to the experience of being a mum.