Friday Night Dinner


Friday Night Dinner is a British television sitcom written by Robert Popper and starring Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird, Tom Rosenthal, and Mark Heap. The comedy is focused on the regular dinner experience of the middle-class British Jewish Goodman family every Friday night. The first episode aired on 25 February 2011 on Channel 4. The show received two BAFTA nominations in 2012. The first series was nominated for Best Situation Comedy, while Tamsin Greig was nominated for Best Female Comedy Performance.

Premise

Friday Night Dinner depicts Shabbat dinner in the middle-class secular Jewish Goodman family, reflecting writer and producer Robert Popper's own secular Jewish upbringing. It is set in suburban North London, and filmed there, in Mill Hill. The family consists of mother Jackie Goodman, father Martin, elder son and musician Adam, and younger son and estate agent Jonny. The episodes follow the family as the sons arrive at the family home and proceed to their dinner, which is often interrupted by numerous things. Most frequently, it is disrupted by Adam and Jonny pranking each other, Martin's oddities and their strange neighbour Jim Bell, who is attracted to Jackie. Jim visits the Goodmans frequently, in most cases accompanied by his dog – whom he is afraid of.
Jackie's best friend, Valerie "Auntie Val" Lewis, is also a frequent visitor, as was Jackie's mother, Eleanor "Nelly" Buller. Martin's mother, Cynthia Goodman, referred to as "Horrible Grandma", was an occasional guest to the Goodman household.

Cast and characters

Main

American remake

In September 2011, Deadline Hollywood announced that Greg Daniels, who had adapted The Office for American television, would spearhead an American remake of the series for the broadcast network NBC. The remake was picked up for a pilot, written by Daniels and directed by Ken Kwapis and starring Allison Janney and Tony Shalhoub as the mother and father. The pilot did not go to series.
In 2014, CBS bought an adaptation of the British show for the American market, as a "put pilot".
In 2016 a third attempt at an American remake was under development by CBS, with the title Sunday Night Dinner.