Binge-worthy Brits

There’s a vein of British comedy – going back to Beyond the Fringe and through Monty Python to The Office and The Thick of It and Peep Show – that I have mined for decades.  But lately I’ve been digging deeper, and have come up with some gems.  I’ve already raved about Doc Martin and Catastrophe, The Detectorists and W1A, among others, but now I’m prepared to devote a whole post to the subject.  My Anglophilia runs deep and wide, from my mother’s birthplace through my English major education to my son’s current residence, so I tend to find British sitcoms (some, at least) more palatable and amusing (and limited in episodes) than the American variety, though I immediately rule out any with a laugh track.

British comedies are available on many streaming channels, and as with other programs, frequently shift or are duplicated from one platform to another, so the link I offer is just the one that worked for me.  (The especial beauty of the Roku streaming device is its cross-channel search function.) 

My first pick is a good example, available on several streaming platforms, and well worth binging.  Gavin and Stacey (BCG, AMZ), which ran for 20 episodes in 2007-2010, is about the cross-country romance of a Essex lad and a Welsh lass, which relies on some East-West geographical humor that I eventually had to look at a map to appreciate.  But the contrasts of character are clear enough.  The title couple are played by appealing actors I’ve never seen elsewhere, but their respective sidekicks are played by the show’s heavyweight creators, James Corden (now best known for Carpool Karaoke) and Ruth Jones (someone to look for in the future).  Other relatives on both sides fill out the back-and-forth cast, in various odd-couple match-ups.  The show is sweet (mainly Stacey) and sharp (her friend Nessa), and never wears out its welcome.

According to Metacritic’s compilation of tv critics’ top ten lists, the best television show of the year was the BBC’s Killing Eve (MC-83, Hulu).  Though the series is in the vein of a Hitchcock thriller, or a Le Carré spy story, or a psychological character study, its defining characteristic is its humor, as supplied by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (of Fleabag fame) in her adaptation of a series of international assassin-for-hire stories.  Humor is also well supplied by Sandra Oh, leading an MI6 taskforce, and Jodie Comer as the gleeful murderer.  Cat and mouse, pursuer becoming pursued (and vice versa), you’ve seen the set-up before, but this series pursues it with wit and vigor, and believable (well, almost) characterizations.  I did find this series binge-worthy, but with a caveat.  I watched too many episodes in a row, and wearied of the plot mechanics, the implausible twists that don’t ring true to the characters that have been established.  Rather than go deep or wide, they simply go fast and furious.  Which becomes wearying, despite first-rate production and acting.  At the end of eight episodes, I was not eager for more, even with so many threads left hanging.  Still, a lot of humor and point is derived from the show’s gender reversals and feminist subtexts.

Expanding the Brit category to include Commonwealth countries, I am particularly pleased to recommend the Australian series, Please Like Me (2013-16, Hulu).  I was led to the show by the exceptionally reliable reviewer EmilyNussbaum, and it’s a real charmer.  Consistently funny in a low-key way, it’s also deeply serious, and unafraid to tackle difficult themes.  Josh Thomas and Thomas Ward play twenty-something housemates who have been best friends since the age of ten (as they have been in real life).  Around them flow a stream of girlfriends, boyfriends, and family.  The material seems highly personal, and has the ring of authenticity.  In the first scene Josh’s longtime girlfriend breaks up with him, and when he asks why, tells him, “Because you’re gay.”  And you know what, she’s right.  As Josh begins to discover for himself, in surprisingly explicit terms.  His wealthy father is now living with a younger Thai woman and his divorced mother is in a mental home after a suicide attempt (where a fellow patient is Hannah Gadsby!).  Joyful and sad, hyperactive and becalmed – as one’s twenties tend to be – Please Like Me is easy to like, thank you very much, and also to believe in.

Two teens meet cute in the high school lunch room; he’s a self-proclaimed psychopath looking to graduate from animal to human victims, she’s an angst-y rebel-without-a-cause who just wants to get out of town – of course it’s a love story.  Could this be another Badlands or Natural Born Killers?  Do you find those comparisons distasteful?  Maybe the title is offputting – End of the F***ing World (MC-81, BCG, NFX)?  If like me, you need a little prodding to watch anything with that set-up, let me tell you, this British import is pretty great.  Dark to be sure, but funny and even sweet.  As the crazy kids on the run, Alex Lawther and Jessica Barden are endearing and awful at the same time, but the charm of the story is in its meta-wit, and the sheer velocity of its telling, in 8 episodes of 20 minutes each.  Part of the wit comes through well-chosen music, which offers ironic commentary on the action instead of goosing emotions or lamely providing motivation.  It’s not exactly a spoiler to say that the series will be back for a second season – I’ll be watching.

With so many fine options available, a British sitcom has to connect immediately for me to persist, even through just a six-episode season.  Many are ruled out the instant I hear the laugh track, such as recent well-regarded hits like The IT Crowd and Miranda.  Others seem decent enough, but with nothing that brings me back for more than a single episode, like Fresh Meat or The Inbetweeners, Derry Girls or Friday Night Dinner, Bisexual or Sally4Ever, not to mention Green Wing or Sex Education.  I made it through a season of The Job Lot, an obvious clone of The Office, and may watch more, but I’m not going to suggest that you do so.  So I’ll wrap up this Brit-sit round-up with a mild age-appropriate endorsement, a fervent recommendation, and two more binge-worthy tv shows, from France and America.

So many of these shows are, as you would expect, about young people under thirty (who are never to be trusted, as we are instructed by the reversals of age), so I was inclined to indulge myself with Boomers (BCG, AMZ).  Perhaps the humor was a little lame, but it was directed straight at my demographic, and I grew to find the performers appealing.  Don’t go out of your way to watch it, however.

On the other hand, by all means do look for a chance to take in Mum (BCG, AMZ).  As veterans of gritty dramas by the likes of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, the pair of leads in this gentle, low-key sitcom – Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan – make for a wonderfully underplayed odd couple.  She’s a recent widow coping with a group of hilariously awful relatives and hangers-on.  He’s the divorced old friend who’s pined for her for decades.  So far they’ve danced around each other through two seasons, each covering a year in six episodes.  A third and final season is in the works, anticipating a consummation devoutly to be wished.

So much for British comedy, now I nip across the Channel and renew my recommendation for the third season of the French workplace comedy/drama Call My Agent (Wiki, NFX).  Each hour-long episode features a famous (or not-so-, to an American audience) French actor or actress or director as a client for an agency of four prime film industry insiders, and assorted associates.  Their private lives impinge on the workplace continuously with soap opera turns, and the pace is never less than hectic, as well as satiric.  It may be more my thing than yours, but try an episode on for size.

Actually, that last sentence applies to nearly all the series mentioned in this post.  Same goes for another out-of-category and out-of-character series that I binged on – good reviews, and Netflix’s boast that it had forty million viewers, led me to You (MC-74, NFX).  And I could hardly give up on a show whose protagonist is a bookstore manager (Penn Badgley), kinda cute even if he is a stalker and a psychopath.  He’s got a thing for a privileged blond princess (Elizabeth Lail) who walks into his store, a would-be writer in an MFA program.  The ten-part series is a neat mix of thriller and rom-com about millennials in NYC, with a nice feel for the city and a satiric eye on its denizens.  I found it a guilty pleasure, but doubt I’ll be back for the second season, unless it earns raves.