The Cornwell Estate is a series drawing on Phil Cornwell’s early, real-life experiences. It creates an account of life on a fictional housing estate, told from the perspective of four of Phil’s creations.

Each episode follows the fortunes of one of the characters as they negotiate the ups and downs of estate life and battle with authority, ex-wives, old friends, NHS surgeons, record companies, estate busybodies and meals on wheels.

‘Andrew McGibbon’s fantastic (in every sense) comedy The Cornwell Estate had the ridiculously versatile Phil Cornwell in completely Euro-bonkers mode as Hank Zuttermilk, the Dutch lorry driver – his English an explosion of suffixed ‘ishes’ – his wardrobe an implosion of seventies weekend hippy gear. What makes this series work so well is the preposterousness allied with minute observation in both the writing and performance.’

‘The welcome new series of Andrew McGibbon’s The Cornwell Estate had its star, in episode two, playing a Newcastle comic banned by matrimonial injunction from entering the city centre. Instead, he devised a high altitude messaging system by attaching one of his publicity posters to a homing pigeon to semaphore reparation to the teenage daughter he had never met.
The series’ co-creator Phil Cornwell plays a different character in each episode, the style of which is pitched midway between Alan Bennett and Alan Partridge. Coincidentally, the breathtakingly talented Cornwell once played a DJ in I’m Alan Partridge. This is comedy drama which holds its nerve, not always going for the obvious joke, bundling nerdiness up with edginess. The opener had Cornwell as a teacher muddling his way blindly through a minefield of potential racism as he tries to coax ethnicity from pupils whose origins may have been far-flung but who were firmly rooted in Potter’s Bar.’