Today, the notion of four thirtysomethings bickering on a fart-battered flatshare couch isn’t quite the solid-gold elevator pitch for a sitcom it was in the early 90s. Unless your surname has a hyphen in it, or a wealthy relative helpfully expires, or you’ve been saving for so long you’ve literally forgotten what smiling feels like, you’re probably never going to be able to afford a home without at least one irritating housemate in it. Thanks, baby boomers: because of you, flatsharing well into our fourth decade is a glum reality for many of us, now, and probably for ever.

This sad turn of events gives Men Behaving Badly, the Ronseal-titled sitcom that was a minor phenomenon between 1992 and 1998, an odd sort of timelessness. Martin Clunes is Gary, a sad sack whose life amounts to a steady yet stultifying job and a half-arsed relationship with Caroline Quentin’s Dorothy, a nurse who still lives with her parents, and remains with Gary – as far as we can tell – because it’s easier than breaking up with him. In the flat upstairs lives Deborah, played with perfect holier-than-thou-edness by Leslie Ash. And in Gary’s spare room dwells a lodger: Harry Enfield’s Dermot in the feet-finding first series, and Neil Morrissey’s affable dimbulb Tony from series two onwards. Gary and Dorothy’s relationship is fractious, and Tony has a crush on Deb. They drink, they argue, they take the piss out of each other. No one really knows what to do with their lives. Replace the adorably 90s names with modern ones – probably Sansa or Cillian or something – and the setup is basically every reluctant, fiscally motivated houseshare today.

Sure, it’s definitely of its time. The amount of smoking indoors seems like madness, at least to anyone whose curtains don’t smell like Keith Richards’s lapels. And while Gary and Tony hardly represent “Oi oi, go on the Reds!” mid-90s “new lad” culture, their drunken knobheaddery was a definite stepping stone towards it. Stella was imbibed in industrial weights. Chats about which ladies’ bottom was nicest were had. And the whole women-as-killjoys angle looks odd in hindsight, particularly considering Absolutely Fabulous – Women Behaving Badly in all but name – was on at the same time. Through it all, though, the central bromance between Gary and Tony lifted everything; part adorable, part sad, each slurred conversation a hilarious, wonderfully written window into the male psyche. Through ill-advised raves, DIY dentistry, barbecue catastrophes, rubbish jobs, breakups and flings, Gary and Tony were best mates.

Until Tony and Dorothy slept together. Yep, that’s right. Late in series four, Gary was away and his best mate and his girlfriend boffed. It wasn’t Dorothy’s betrayal that irked (Gary had tried, was currently trying to, and later succeeded in, cheating on Dorothy, so he had it coming) but dense, faithful Tony’s. Like a flatshare couch your housemate has done a shag on, their relationship was tarnished for ever. The show trundled merrily on for another two series and a few specials, but something wasn’t quite right. When Debs and Tony finally got together, it was definitely time for the men to start behaving and grow up.