The Great Outdoors, BBC Four

Now that Last of the Summer Wine has been strapped aboard the great Stairmaster to the Sky, there’s a gap in the market for a comedy in which the landscape has a starring role. Written by Kevin Cecil, whose credits include Black Books, and Andy Riley, The Great Outdoors is a bucolic al fresco sitcom following the members of a rambling club in the Chilterns as they trudge through their drab, rather lonely lives and negotiate their petty rivalries. Like the countryside it depicts, it's diverting and nicely put together without ever quite taking the breath away.

Last week’s opening episode was a neat scene-setter in which we encountered the age-old comedic staple of irresistible force and immovable object. In one corner: newcomer Christine, an émigré from the Barnstaple branch of Ramblers UK, an über-efficient northern busy-body played with her usual deadpan panache by Ruth Jones from Gavin and Stacey. In the other, Walk Leader Bob, a kind of David Brent with stout shoes, acute paranoia and a matchless knowledge of Public Rights of Way, portrayed with jittery, shark-eyed relish by Mark Heap of Green Wing and Brass Eye fame.

It didn’t take long for the fleeces to fly. The Great Outdoors hangs on an archetypal battle of wills, the kind of pathos-riddled power struggle that defines the central relationship in everything from Dad’s Army to Fawlty Towers. Last night Christine - “Ranulph Fiennes on HRT” – had been upgraded to Deputy Walk Leader and was soon sparring with Bob – physically at one point - for the very soul of the rambling society, the prize symbolised by a badge saying simply "Walk Leader".



Bob is the traditionalist railing against Twitter and geo-tagging, desperate to hang on to every last shred of influence he wields in a world which you suspect otherwise grants him very little respect; Christine is the relentless moderniser equipped with enough kit on her back to tackle the north face of the Eiger in a blizzard: emergency flares, survival socks, sufficient cereal bars to feed a scout troupe, and an in-built sat nav which, alas, can't show her the shortcut to a well-rounded life.

Around the edges of this central skirmish is a supporting cast of social misfits. Bob's teenage daughter Hazel and her geeky potential beau Victor; Joe and Sophie, a woefully misguided alliance between a selfish, childishly acquisitive oaf (“that snooker room is our dream, yeah?”) and a sexually and spiritually unfulfilled neurotic who says things like: "It’s very challenging running specialist candle outlets these days.” Heading rapidly for the divorce courts, they're taking the scenic route. And then there’s Bob’s trusty sidekick Tom (“What do you want out of life?” “Just to get on the sick…”), a zero-watt bulb who hangs out at the Crack Drop-In Centre for the free biscuits and whose idea of a suitable venue for a first date is Greggs. 



It’s broad strokes. The Great Outdoors trades perhaps a little too readily on the humour of the banal, which relies on us finding green highlighter pens and borderline autistic behaviour intrinsically funny. People fastidiously count pennies out of plastic bags, and all the males have PhDs in inadequacy. But it’s full of charm and some fine didn’t-see-it-coming one-liners, all overlaid with quirky, surreal touches – last night had a set-up which involved a fairy with a shotgun in both hands and a mobile phone down her bra.

In the end, it's a gentle, meandering stroll rather than a brisk walk. It reminded me most of Simon Nye’s How Do you Want me?, the sadly under-appreciated Nineties comedy starring Dylan Moran and the late Charlotte Coleman. It too was rarely laugh-out-loud funny, a narrative comedy which couldn’t always decide how serious it wanted to be, but like The Great Outdoors it traded in a gentle, slightly melancholic humour with an edge of something more sinister curling around the corners.

The Great Outdoors is two half-hour episodes into a three episode run, which BBC Four have done before with the likes of The Thick of It and Getting On but which still feels oddly unsatisfactory: not quite a proper series, more than a pilot. If it gets a clear shot at six shows next time around I could see it growing into itself, perhaps even becoming something we might learn to love a little.

• Watch The Great Outdoors on BBC iPlayer