Stath misses a million tricks by speeding through the viewing scenes, with their landing toilets, four-foot ceilings and kitchen-diner-bedroom-bogs. If we came to series one expecting a satirical takedown of a laughably overpriced and exploitative rental market that expects you to shell out 400 per cent of your monthly income to live in a ‘well-appointed’ cat litter tray above an all-night abattoir on Tooting’s ‘trendy’ Asbestos Mile, we were disappointed.

Rarely, though, has the fine art of arrested development been so liberally, and often brilliantly, deployed as in Stath Lets Flats. To allow your characters to age, evolve or experience major life changes – beyond the long-teased will-they-won’t-they cop-off at the end of series three – is to risk unbalancing the chemistry or, worse still, allowing them the faculties to consider escaping their intricately constructed comedy bear trap. From Maggie Simpson to Father Dougal, arrested development is so core to the art and sustainability of the average sitcom that there’s even one named after it.

Stath lets flats s01e01 on dailymotion