Mum

Cathy is tiptoeing through the dark house, trying to get ready for work without disturbing everyone but Kelly is already awake: "I was just havin' a little think and a cry", she explains. She's been out in the dawn garden where she saw a family of foxes and spilled out all her worries to the silent animals. Cathy humours her and asks if they had any advice and, for once, Kelly offers a sensible answer: "Not really. They're foxes."

The reason for her nocturnal conversation with foxes is that her boyfriend, Cathy's son, has the chance of a job in Australia and she's terrified that he'll leave her. And Peter Mullan's character, Michael, continues to walk silently around the house, looking as though he's squinting at a glorious sun whenever he sees Cathy.

I'm finally starting to warm to its tender scenes. There's a lovely, wavering silence when Michael admits he wants to lose weight and Cathy replies, "You're lovely just as you are."

Stefan Golaszewski - the brains behind the excellent Him & Her - writes this similarly low-key sitcom starring Lesley Manville. There are shades of Mike Leigh - a woman in her 50s comes to terms with bereavement - but the way Golaszewski has fun with vain people while backing the good eggs is all his own. Tonight, Kelly worries about Jason while Mike and Cathy's compatibility is hard to ignore.

Preview: Mum, BBC2, episode 5

As Bruce Springsteen might have said if he was writing about Mum it's darkness on the edge of town this week. It's an October morning, the sun has not risen and Cathy is mooching around, finding various people in various states of distress and undress around her suburban semi.