Sarah Millican plays Sarah, life counsellor and modern day agony aunt, in this BBC Radio 4 comedy series. She wants you to live life to the utmost, and she's got tons of ideas of how to help - in the same way as the busybody at the end of your street knows everything - and dishes out advice whether you want to hear it or not. Assisted - or hindered - by other experts in matters of the heart, Terry (Simon Day) and Marion (Ruth Bratt), Sarah will be tackling the nation's problems head on, dishing out real advice for real people...

Sarah Millican's Support Group consists of four 30 minute episodes which sees the comedian tackling a number of life problems. While the "experts" and guests with problems are all comedians acting out their parts, Millican does venture into the audience from time to time to find people who have lived through similar situations.

For example we meet Agnes, who was dumped and went out with her ex's best friend, and Delilah, who dumped her partner on a blog a week before she was due to get married.

Subjects tackled include dating outside your class; how to deal with embarrassing parents; keeping secrets from your partner; younger women who date older men; and breaking up with people.

Amongst the guest stars that appear are Simon Day as Terry the cab driver, who is meant to represent the average man in the street's perspective on the weekly topics, as well as Mark Heap and Susie Blake.

Millican takes centre stage and opens each show with a bit of standup that is relevant to that week's subjects - she also manages to keep the social commentary jokes flowing throughout the show. To be honest, with out her gags this would have slipped into being more of a spoof tabloid talk show - and that wouldn't have worked quite so well. However, thanks to Millican's input this is an entertaining and very amusing series.

7

Nick Smithson