For us on the other side of the pond, the British comedy Fortysomething plays out like a twisted episode of House in an alternate reality.

It is so refreshing and out and out hilarious to watch Hugh Laurie in his native accent as he plays a bumbling British doctor whose kids are sleeping with each others’ girlfriends as he saunters through thinking he’s losing his mind and hearing people’s thoughts in this sex-charged tale of mid-life crisis and family dynamic.

Laurie plays Paul Slippery, who can’t remember the last time he had sex with his wife (Anna Chancellor), but has to deal with his three sons who try to shag everything in sight.

In the US, this would be an inappropriate premise for television or something you’d see in HBO after Sex and the City and the L Word, but Fortysomething actually makes sex on television tasteful.

You also get to see Hugh Laurie cross dress as a Muslim woman in the fourth episode.

Very simply, Fortysomething is brilliant.

The series runs six episodes, one hour each, on two DVD’s being released by Acorn April 8.