Sally Phillips hopes her new sitcom Parents will appeal to entire families - just like The Generation Game did years ago.
The actress said it was sad that while comedy was such a British institution, the main things people watch together nowadays are talent shows.
Phillips plays Jenny, a businesswoman who loses her job, then her home, and is forced to move herself and her family back in with her parents.
Jenny is a fortysomething who believes the downturn in her fortunes - from her own posh house to her parents' - is only a short-term thing.
But the move - along with her husband and two teenage children, one of whom is resentful, lasts longer than she thinks.
While she is no stranger to supporting roles, Phillips takes the lead in Parents, and admitted it was a daunting prospect.
"I just have to pretend that's not happening, otherwise I get too scared," she told Sky's Anna Jones.
Seventy-year-old actor, theatre director and novelist Tom Conti appears as her father Len.
Phillips added: "Tom Conti is on set and he's such an institution, such a genius as well that it didn't really feel like I was the star.
"He plays my dad - brilliantly. He's fantastic and he's also quite naughty. He was always encouraging me to be bigger, madder, stranger, odder.
"I was very, very glad to have him there."
Phillips got her big break when she played Sophie the receptionist in I'm Alan Partridge.
She went on to co-create and write Smack The Pony, an all-female, double Emmy Award-winning comedy show.
And she appeared in the 2001 blockbuster Bridget Jones's Diary as Shazzer, having previously auditioned for Bridget.
The new show deals with values in modern-day Britain, with Phillips' character Jenny coming to realise what is really important in life.
She said Parents was a pre-watershed show with no swearing that she hoped would appeal to parents, grandparents and children alike.
:: Parents starts tonight at 8.30pm with a double bill on Sky1 HD.
