Sandylands

Sandylands is a British television sitcom created and written by Martin Collins and Alex Finch. It was directed by Michael Cumming, produced by King Bert Productions and originally aired on Gold from 4 March 2020.
The series revolves around the offbeat inhabitants of the titular seaside resort. It stars Natalie Dew, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Harriet Webb, David Walliams, Sophie Thompson, Simon Bird, Bronwyn James, Hamza Jeetooa, Hugh Bonneville, Craig Parkinson, Collins, Darren Strange, Janet Pince and Radha Sthanakiya. A second series is due to air in 2021.
Overview.
Premise.
The series revolves around 27-year-old Emily Verma (Dew), who returns to her seaside hometown Sandylands to attend the funeral of her estranged father.
Synopsis.
Emily Verma, who fled Sandylands for a more exciting life in London, reluctantly returns for the funeral of her estranged father Les Vegas (Bhaskar), an amusement arcade owner who disappeared at sea in a pedalo. She reunites with childhood friends Tina Taylor (Webb), a tour guide, and Kenny (Jeetooa), her father's employee, as well as childhood crush Nathan Wild (Bird), a police officer. She is forced to lodge with overbearing bed and breakfast owners Derek (Walliams) and Jeannie Swallows (Thompson) after being unable to gain entry to her father's house. Emily soon discovers that her father is alive and had faked his death because he was in debt and hoped to claim on his life insurance. Emily unwittingly becomes his partner in crime as she attempts to conceal the truth from Nathan and his colleague Trudy Wright (James), the other residents, and from a sinister insurance investigator (Bonneville), who is investigating her father's claim.
Production.
The series was filmed in the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon in North Somerset over three weeks in autumn 2019.
Reception.
Rupert Hawksley of i called the series "camp and gaudy with plenty of oo-er humour" and remarked, "Emily’s confusion between grief and anger over her father’s disappearance was cleverly handled by [the writers], who managed to wring out just the right amount of emotion, never dampening the jaunty, end-of-the-pier feel". Alex Fletcher of BT praised the cast and described the series as "a deliciously bonkers escape to seaside nostalgia".