Bolton Wanderers:Alma's Not Normal S2.

Alma Nuttall (Sophie Willan) is back in Bolton. She's all dressed in pink, riding a pink Vespa named Julie - after Julie Walters, and wearing a coat, that Barbara Ellen brilliantly described in The Observer, that "looks as if she's skinned Bagpuss", and she's quite unrepentant that the success she thought she so richly deserved, and did deserve, only saw her playing 'tree number two' in a play called The Silent Forest of Diversity.

Her mum, Lin (Siobhan Finneran), is back in what she calls the "guinea pig farm" and what others would describe as a medium secure ward where she's got "very into witchcraft", and her nan, Joan (Lorraine Ashbourne), still routinely decked out in leopard print apart from one surprising topless scene, is treating Lin's boyfriend Jim (Nicholas Asbury) like a house pet. He's not even allowed to use the kettle.

This all seems ripe for comedic gold but, to begin with, the second series of Alma's Not Normal (BBC1/iPlayer, created and written by Willan herself and directed by Andrew Chaplin) disappoints. The first few jokes, be they slapstick or observational, simply don't land. Joan swapping the ciggies for party blowers really isn't as funny as everyone involved seems to think and the accidental ordering of one hundred pinatas for a Mexican night at Alma's friend's Leanne's (Jayde Adams) bar, which she won in a game of strip poker, simply made me go hmmm.

Like C&C Music Factory. But then something strange happens. It gets better - and then better again. I don't know if it's case of sinking into Alma's world or not but I actually found it got much funnier as the series went on while at the same time being very sweet in places and, on occasions, emotional. In fact, a lot more emotional than you may expect from such a show.

There is pathos and there is bathos and the two of them are sewn together quite brilliantly. Towards the end of the first episode, Joan reveals to Alma that she has lung cancer and that, of course, adds a bittersweet edge to everything that follows. Be it a trip to Blackpool, Alma playing a ghost in a Ghouls'R'Us experience, or Alma tracking her dad (Richard, played by Craig Parkinson) down only to find he's not Richard Ashcroft from The Verve after all. Though he is a tool so he's not that different.

In a world of cheeky Vimtos, LADBible, Fred Dibnah, fish'n'chip shops, pop tarts, vapes, Deliveroo, and Warburton's extra toasty loaves with jam much of the humour comes from Alma's eccentric and dysfunctional family as well as the cast of strange characters that make up Alma's life in Bolton. Demonstrating that the show has some pull there's some big names rock up for cameo roles.

Steve Pemberton plays Uncle Dickie, Julie Hesmondhalgh is Aunty Ange, and Nick Mohammed is Jules, an unorthodox and frankly useless solicitor who takes on Lin's case with predictable disastrous results. Less well known, but equally good, are Selena Mosinski has light-fingered Auntie Evie, Ash Hunter as Alma's brief love interest Sam, Jemma Churchill as well meaning neighbour Sandra, and Kenneth Collard as Alma's hopeless agent David. Beleagured David's office is a stock cupboard in the shop where he packs shelves in his real job. His 'agency' is called Dedicated Talent Monkey.

Then there's Dave Spikey's Ian who coaches wannabe comedians and thinks he's 'unique' because he's embraced his Internet rage. Ian has split up with his wife, quite standard for keyboard warriors I understand, and has a new stand up show called "Washing Up Alone Again". 

That's moderately funny as is Alma telling Joan "you look like Bet Lynch has thrown up on you", the traffic light dating night at Leanne's bar, and Jim dressing as a skeleton to a funeral because they "didn't have 'owt black". Funnier still is Joan saying she'd rather drink her own piss than accept Sandra's invitation to Sunday service, Joan (again) claiming that her bucket list includes meeting Prince (who died in 2016), and when, during a game of crazy golf, Alma calls somebody "Cunty McFuckface".

It's puerile but I couldn't help laughing and Alma's Not Normal seems to work best when the jokes are crude or when it goes full steam into the emotions of the chief protagonists. There's a nifty soundtrack (The Specials, Blondie, Shaggy, Amyl & The Sniffers, The Nolans, The Lovely Eggs, Marlena Shaw, Kylie Minogue, Labi Siffre, and George Formby) that keeps the whole thing moving and there's a still relevant dig about the cruel Tory programme of austerity (cue still pictures of David Cameron and George Osborne looking unbearably smug) and the damage it caused to communities like the one Alma and her family live in.

But more than anything else, there's a sense of lovable, yet frustrating, eccentric people trying to make the most of their lives, trying to make each other laugh, and, in the case of Sophie Willan, trying to make us laugh too. It took her a while, she didn't choose the easy route, but she got there in the end. Alma may not be normal but she'd be a lot less interesting if she was.