Remember back in the mid noughties when everyone was all “Oh, The Royle Family is so indicative of the modern day working class, and it’s a problem that we need to address,” and “I know someone just like Denise. She’s a feckless moron as well. Terrible BO” and everything was “My Arse”?

We all can. It was a sad era for sitcoms. An era that would’ve contributed to Lucille Ball’s suicide. If she was alive still, and wanted to do go ‘Garland Style’.

Well Ralf Little, him with the really ordinary looking face, has tried to reinvigorate his career by co-writing a piece of trash called ‘The Cafe.’

Set in a coastal cafe in Weston-Super-Mare, it chronicles the nonsensical bollocks that people who frequent cafes instead of achieving things in their lives experience. Like talking to a gay who is dressed like Hellboy. Or being an unsuccessful writer. Or looking after the elderly and infirm. Or helping out your mother who is facing financial ruin because you run an eating establishment that isn’t Starbucks or Costa.

If the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders were a thing that people could actually have faith in, The Cafe would be ranking pretty high as the thing that spontaneously infects people with Kerry Katonitis (which is a fervent mix of schizophrenia, substance abuse and a terrible taste in men). At times flipping between bafflingly pointless and shamefully mediocre, you endure with it because you believe that it’ll get better; like an abusive relationship: that you can change it, raise a family together, but in actual fact, you just look forward to the advert interludes, which in this analogy, is the brief respite when he (or she; we’re all for equal opportunities at HS) is too drunk to stand up to urinate.

Admittedly we at hecklerspray may have a high expectation when it comes to every single thing in the World (which doesn’t bode well for HS: The Next Generation), but The Cafe is so lacking in anything that anyone could call ‘entertaining’, that it becomes slightly surrealistic. But still retains it’s tragic awfulness at the same time. Like an optical illusion. A really shit optical illusion.

If it isn’t a flock of doddering pensioners arguing about the difference between a Cornish Cream Tea and a Devonshire Cream Tea, then it’s the same flock of doddering pensioners asking about what flowers mean. Apparently Roses mean I Love You. And at the same time, mean a Sunderland Leapfrog may be on the cards. The Cafe is honestly like watching an omnibus of ‘Last Of The Summer Wine’, ‘Antiques Roadshow’ and ‘Celebrity Shite In The Attic’ while suffering from Locked In Syndrome.

We’d like to leave you to get on with your filthy nocturnal habits, and googlings of ‘Sunderland Leapfrog’ with what stuck with us after all is said and done: who decided that ‘debbon’ was a correct pronounciation of Devon. It’s not. It’s ridiculous. Stop it. Stop it now.

Can you imagine an East End gangster drama which doesn’t star Danny Dyer? Moreover, can you imagine one which wasn’t directed by Guy Richie?

It isn’t an easy concept to fathom; god knows sometimes we don’t want to. Unfortunately it isn’t our choice; Sky 1 is forcing us to picture such an idea because of their new 1980s 4-part drama The Take, starting tomorrow.

Our experience of gangsters begins and ends with a documentary we watched in the eighties about the criminal movements of a family in Walford, London. Given that, we can’t really verify the level of realism present in the many Kray-esque films this country keeps churning out. They pass the basics though, no one could fly, they didn’t have iPhones, it all adds up.

Tom Hardy stars as Freddie Jackson, an unhinged, repulsive killer with an impulse control problem. Viewers without cataracts or eye patches will know him as the guy who played the title role in Bronson. But he isn’t typecast, alright? But fear not, he has a great supporting cast in the guise of Brian Cox and Shaun Evans. There’s even an actress who looks a bit like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, something for everyone.

Based on a novel by Martina Cole, The Take somehow manages to portray characters both on the good and bad ends of the moral compass without ever presenting anyone with more than a single redeeming feature. Subconsciously you’ll place characters into these two camps but realise later down the line that they are, in fact, all morally abhorrent. This is compounded by the fact that there is little mention of the law, and seemingly no chance of getting caught. It’s all relative.

It’s a compelling mini-series, albeit pretty unpleasant in places; but then most of you watched Britain’s Got Talent didn’t you. This is tame in comparison.

Go and have a butcher’s when it’s on, or you’ll end up ‘ovis mate, brahn bread (dead).

The Take starts on Sky 1 at 9pm tomorrow. Here’s the trailer…