Jam & Jerusalem

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Jam & Jerusalem
5 / 5

Series: 3
Aired: 2006-2009
Channel: BBC One
Writer: Jennifer Saunders and Abigail Wilson
Cast: Sue Johnston, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Joanna Lumley, Pauline McLynn, Maggie Steed, Sally Phillips, David Mitchell et al

I'd forgotten how much I utterly, absolutely adored Jam & Jerusalem. Created by one of the most amazing British comedy actors and writers of all time (Jennifer Saunders), J&J centres on a rural English village called Clatterford St. Mary (fictional) and its WI Guild (very non-fictional).

It's basically a work of genius, in my not particularly humble opinion. First of all we need to commend the sheer quality of female comedians and actors at work here. You'd be forgiven for wondering when Joanna Lumley will pop up because her character is so unlike her and Dawn French is a wonderful breath of fresh air regarding the portrayal of mentally ill characters in comedy.

The story begins with Sue Johnston's character, Sal, a part-time nurse practitioner whose husband unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, bringing her son (James, played by David Mitchell) in to run the village's practice along with his wife. And then we get to the Women's Institute Guild, run by the absolutely brilliantly played-by-Maggie-Steed Eileen. She is a force to be reckoned with, let me tell you. Her character and her obsession with Charles Dance feature in my Top Ten Comedy Moments That Never Fail To Make Me Laugh When I Think About Them.

The relationships between all the characters is astounding. They are all driven together by the WI, the jam and the Jerusalem, despite most of them not particularly even wanting to be there in the first place, or perhaps not having any kind of real reason for being there. Sal is reluctant to join in at first, but alongside Tip, (Pauline McLynn, who played Mrs Doyle in Father Ted if you need any more encouragement to watch it), who plays the little red devil upon Sal's shoulder quite marvellously, they both join up as a "what the hell, it might be fun" initiative.

Countrylife frolics ensue. We have your average farm escapades and horse-riding shenanigans that you'd expect to find in any English rural town, alongside vicarage tales of the quite-ordinary-actually and a varied plethora of family sub-plots that all, somehow, lead back to the WI and its members. We have the obvious and perhaps clichéd run-ins with cake competitions and village fétes, each one with more clichés thrown on top of them. But don't get me wrong: it's not a clever ploy to disregard the pastoral life as something utterly banal and worthless. It is an endearing celebration of it with a comedic twist.

As French and Saunders say: "only take the piss out of the things that you love".