There’s a sitcom on television in this country now called Great Night Out. It’s very formulaic, given that it follows the misadventures of four woefully inept men who have a knack of ruining relationships in supposedly knee-slappingly hilarious ways. There have been two episodes so far, both of which have involved the unsuccessful attempt to have a great night out. I’m not sure if it’s going to stick to the premise indicated by the title for the entire series or not.

It isn’t funny. I haven’t laughed once. It’s the sort of nudging, winking, laddish comedy that I could never wrap my head around - like The Inbetweeners got jobs, girlfriends and mortgages.

Here’s the weird thing about Great Night Out, though, despite the fact that it’s a comedy that can’t make me laugh: it’s set in Stockport, which is the town where I’ve spent all twenty-two years of my life. Stockport is wholly unremarkable. Stockport cultivates depression - all of those gritty, bleak realist film directors tend to come from here. Dominic Monaghan, easily the whiniest character in LOST, came from here. More importantly, not much comes from here - it used to be a town whose main export was hats. You think I’m kidding. I’m fucking not.

So to see streets and locations that I’m incredibly familiar with immortalised on TV feels odd. There’s this misplaced sense of local pride. The protagonists boo at the signs that welcome them to Manchester whenever they enter the (neighbouring, far more interesting) city. One of the characters is continually criticised by his partner for not being adventurous enough, and while he is casually made fun of for this fact, the show always rests on its laurels and sees it as an adorable trait. Why would you ever leave Stockport? That’s the constant question.

I get conflicted about this town. On the one hand, it’s useful. Any local amenities are five minutes’ walk away. I can catch the train to the apparently-loathed city of Manchester every fifteen minutes from the station just outside my house. We have a few burglaries and car thefts, but violent crime is pretty low around here. We’re (I think) the largest town in the country that isn’t a city (we failed a bid a few years ago to become one). It’s so fucking boring here, though. One of the reasons that Great Night Out isn’t funny is because it stinks of defeat - the characters have accepted that living in Stockport is an inevitability. As a future emigrant, that’s depressing as hell. Cemetery Junction, this is not.

The acting’s quite good, though. And the tall one’s quite endearing. Not funny in the slightest, but you can scrape out a bit of empathy.