We are family!

Oonagh Robinson reviews the first episode of Channel Four's The Family

I always like to know that my family isn’t the absolute worst in the world - whatever everyone else tries to tell me.

Hence, I was very keen last night to tune into The Family - Channel Four’s ambitious new fly on the wall documentary following the everyday bickerings of The Hughes clan from Canterbury.

What a thoroughly stupid lot they turned out to be - with the possible exception of the clumsy young lad who kept knocking glasses over.

He was brilliant.

Most of the action in the first episode centred on terrible teen Emily - a kind of surly cross between the pop star Pink and Stacey Slater off EastEnders.

Mum Jane was about to celebrate her 40th birthday (and yes, it was a bit of a shock to find out she was already a granny) so she was already in a bad mood most of the time.

But Emily didn’t help matters.

She was out partying until all hours in the morning, kept skiving off work and was generally a miserable little cow for most of the episode.

The one time she was nice, she ended up singing Kate Nash songs with her mum. Which shows you how bad things were.

I would have had a bit of sympathy for Jane and her pillock of a husband Simon if Emily had been, say, a girl of 13 or 14 years - who was out of control and driving them crazy.

But Emily wasn’t a young schoolgirl.

She was 19, with a job in (we think) some sort of High Street shop and her own money and her own life.

She would have been old enough to go away to university, for example, where she would no doubt have been up to all sorts without the benefit of her mum and dad’s words of “wisdom.”

The solution to Jane and Simon’s predicament seems completely obvious to me.

Start charging Emily for her board and lodging.

Then she wouldn't have as much money to go out partying from 11pm and causing them so much grief.

It ain’t rocket science.

So will I be tuning in next week to see if the penny drops? Course I will.

Best bit of mindless telly that’s been on for ages this.

I only wish they were doing it Big Brother style and we could catch up with all the shenanigans every night.

So - what did YOU reckon?