Last modified on Sun 7 Mar 2021 17.26 EST Fans of Seinfeld understand the perverse pleasures of spending time with the Costanza family – watching these pugnacious people bicker and yell and jump down each other’s throats, turning what might have been sedate occasions into epic shouting matches. I daresay that the Beare family in Mother and Son – particularly the titular characters, brilliantly played by Ruth Cracknell and Garry McDonald – could give George and his folks a run for their money. This great Australian sitcom is so devoted to capturing their arguments that watching it feels almost like a form of assault. Retrospectively viewed through the prism of a proto-Seinfieldian exercise in narrative minutiae, this terrifically spiky and shouty series – which ran for six seasons, between 1984 to 1994, collecting much acclaim and popularity – is in some respects more devoted to matters of inconsequence than the famous “show about nothing”. Created and written by Geoffrey Atherden, and produced and directed by Geoff Portmann, Mother and Son is more pared back than Seinfeld, with a very small cast and a huge portion of it taking place in the house where Maggie (Cracknell) and Arthur (McDonald) live.