7.8 /10 1 Votes
Genre Sitcom Country of origin United Kingdom Final episode date 4 September 2013 | 7.7/10 IMDb Composer(s) Adam Lipinski First episode date 23 November 2011 Network Sky 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Written by Ralf Little
Michelle Terry Directed by Craig Cash (series 1)
Robin Sheppard (series 2) Starring Ellie Haddington
Michelle Terry
June Watson
Ralf Little
Daniel Ings
Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Kevin Trainor
David Troughton
Seeta Indrani
Brian Murphy
Marcia Warren
Carolin Stoltz
Jack Roth Cast Ralf Little, Ellie Haddington, David Troughton, Seeta Indrani, Marcia Warren | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Café is a British sitcom written by and starring Ralf Little and Michelle Terry broadcast by Sky1.
Contents
The series premiered on 23 November 2011. A second series was produced and commenced airing on 24 July 2013. In November 2013 it was announced that the series was cancelled.
The cafe sky one theme m4v
Premise
The series is set in and around a café in Weston-super-Mare run by generational trio Mary (June Watson), Carol (Ellie Haddington) and Sarah (Michelle Terry).
Production
The series is co-written by two of its lead actors, Ralf Little and Michelle Terry. The first series was directed by Craig Cash, writer and star of The Royle Family (which also starred Little). The series was filmed in Weston-super-Mare. The first series was filmed in early 2011 whilst the second series was filmed throughout June, July and August 2012. The cafe set was built for the show. Cash and Little both worked together on The Royle Family. Little and Terry met around 2008 whilst performing a sketch together at the Bush Theatre for the Latitude Festival.
The title song for the series is the pop standard "Beyond the Sea", which was sung by Kathryn Williams.
Cast and characters
Reception
Mark Webster of Sabotage Times had this to say about the doubled-billed premier: "Over the last couple of years or so, Sky One have clearly made a consolidated effort to present themselves as a channel that wants to do its business just like their buddies over on terrestrial, and in giving this gently lapping little comedy space alongside the likes of 'Ross Kemp On..', 'A League Of Their Own' and David Walliams 'Wall Of Fame', they are proving they've got the chops to do it".
Tom Meltzer of The Guardian gave the series a mixed review. "In fairness to the writers, their performances are both consistently excellent, and the direction is both naturalistic and nicely understated. But while, as the name suggests, the show owes a clear debt to The Office in its style, it sadly failed to nick Gervais and Merchant's knack for writing characters, stories and, crucially, jokes".
In an early interview before the show's release, Ralf Little told Matthew Hemley of The Stage "Let's say no one watches it and critics hate it", he says. "Michelle and I have worked our bollocks off, to put it in a not particularly classy way. We tried to never compromise our quality. We may have missed the mark, but we know that was our philosophy. We tried to produce something we could be proud of. And we are proud".