Well, you’ve got to hand it to Channel 4. In the current climate, one assumes that the broadcast of every single word stronger than ‘fiddlesticks’ is hotly debated among producers and head honchos – and yet this opening episode of Free Agents featured the c-word not once, not twice, but three times. (Maybe even four, there was one I wasn’t too sure about). And when you put three (maybe four) c-words in a show, you’re clearly wanting to make an impact. Ok, so they got my attention – but was it any good?

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Well, I have no doubt that there will be people who adore this, and those who just don’t laugh once. Me, I’m somewhere in between, much as I’d have love to have a new sitcom to eulogise about.

Here’s the set-up: Alex (Stephen Mangan) and Helen (Sharon Horgan) are celebrity agents, working in an uber-trendy open-plan office with the boss from hell, Stephen Caudwell (Anthony Head) and a healthy selection of media idiots, including Matthew Holness, whom it’s always a joy to see. Alex – old-fashioned, funny, almost Hugh Grant-esque – is recently divorced and not dealing with it at all well, and Helen – modern, liberated, realistic – is mourning the death of her fiance. Perfect for each other, obviously, or at least that’s what Alex somewhat inexplicably believes. Helen, on the other hand, is just happy to have him in her bed when she’s feeling down; she could do without the post-coital crying though…

The positives in the sitcom mostly come from the performances: Mangan, Horgan, Head and Holness are all a complete joy to watch. Mangan is playing a character not entirely dissimilar to his role in Never Better, but as it appears that we’re not going to get a second series of that (damn you, commissioners), it’s no bad thing, as he does the well-meaning, kind-hearted fool very well. And Horgan’s Alex, while rather less sensitive, is still quite sweet and likable. Then there’s Anthony Head, playing one of those grotesque, massively OTT chauvinists, and Matt Holness as a foul-mouthed Nathan Barley-type. These are all great performances, from some of our very best comic actors.

It has to be said that it was far from perfect, though. The script is incredibly wordy, for instance, meaning that the characters have those quick back-and-forth conversations that no-one actually has, and the tone is pretty uneven, swaying from cute and rom-com-esque to, well, three or four c-words in 22 minutes. But I will certainly be watching next week – a lot of this episode was taken up with explaining the hopeless situations of the lead characters but now that’s out of the way, perhaps the series will flourish.