Vale Rosehaven series 2

Rosehaven‘s an unusual one in today’s TV landscape. If you imagine a scale with drama at one end, comedy at the other, and dramedy in the middle, Rosehaven‘s somewhere between dramedy and comedy; never quite funny enough to satisfy the likes of us, but not quite mirthless enough to be the sort of thing that people who don’t like comedy might enjoy.

In fact, the bits which are funny in Rosehaven are the sort of humour that people who find comedy annoying, hate about comedy. Stuff like when Emma and Daniel have childish arguments, or engage in tit-for-tat, or dare each other to do stupid things. A lot of this stuff is really funny – and Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor play it perfectly. But it’s too much like comedy for a dramedy fan.

Except, then there’s a scene where Daniel’s mum says something dry which doesn’t quite work because Kris McQuade plays it too scary, or a scene involving a local eccentric and the actor doesn’t quite time the line right – or their lines aren’t that good in the first place – and that’s where Rosehaven falls into a bit of slump.

What we’re saying here is: if this were The Emma and Daniel (or Celia and Luke) Show it’d probably be a lot funnier. It might be incredibly exhausting too, but we’d be laughing more.

But what do we know? The New York Times liked it. It described it as…

Affable and human

…which it definitely is. Rosehaven the affable: the kind of show you’d be happy to have in your home again because it’s a bit funny, but not so funny that you’d ruin the couch laughing.