Debut director Craig Ferguson once joked that he can get anything green-lit in Hollywood because they didn't understand his Scottish accent.

Perhaps, Tinseltown's movers'n'shakers might have wished they paid a little more attention to that unintelligible lilt when they view the finished product.

It's not that it's bad - Church puts in a perfectly respectable performance - but it is safer than a row of houses and nicer than Cliff Richard on Mother's Day.

Church plays Olivia, who enjoys a blameless existence in Cardiff delivering papers on her pink Italian scooter and warbling in the church in her spare time.

Her mum Rebecca (Redgrave) is making a go of her hairdressing business...when back into her life comes her rock'n'roll dad Joss Ackland (yes, really).

He reminds her of a teenage indiscretion when she spent the night with rock star Paul Kerr (Ferguson) with an unforeseen result - Olivia.

Kerr is now sectioned in a mental hospital after he drunkenly rode his motorcycle through the window of his medieval manor house Sting-style (the house not the accident).

Joss thinks it's time 16-year-old Olivia met her dad, who she thought was a Russian soldier casualty of the Cold War. Rebecca, as you might expect, isn't quite as keen.

Ferguson hit the jackpot with the sleeper hit Saving Grace and it would be nice to see him do as well with this thoroughly British endeavour.

However, it's comedy Britishness is its problem - it's far more The Good Life than Frasier or Seinfeld and you could easily imagine it as a TV movie.

Church sings pleasantly enough (although her voice is too pure for rock'n'roll) and the usual solid support you get in homegrown products is present and correct.

But it gently amuses rather than sets the pulse racing and is as comfortable as a well-worn Chesterfield sofa. Cosy rather than compelling.

Tim Evans