Let’s talk about something a bit more positive for once: I’m really enjoying Greg Davies’ The Cleaner.

I’m aware I’ve posted a fair amount of negative complaining of late, and while I don’t apologise for that — a lot of these things really need to be said, and by more people than just me — I don’t just want to be whingeing all the time. So today I thought I’d write about something I like.

The Cleaner is a new-ish TV series written by and starring comedian Greg Davies, who is probably best known these days as the titular Taskmaster in the excellent “famous people make fools of themselves” programme of the same name. Davies has starred in a number of comedy-drama titles in recent years, however, and I’ve always liked seeing him do his thing.

I believe my first encounter with him was as Mr Gilbert from The Inbetweeners, where I very much enjoyed how much his character resembled my own head of Sixth Form, Mr Watts, in terms of overall attitude and general disdain for anyone under the age of 18. More recently, I enjoyed his semi-autobiographical series Man Down very much — though I know opinions are somewhat divided on that one, particularly with regard to Rik Mayall’s role — and I believe that The Cleaner is his strongest series to date.

The show is apparently an adaptation of a German show known as Der Tatortreiniger, or simply Crime Scene Cleaner, but it’s clear from the script that Davies has very much taken the concept and made it his own along the way. It features recognisable elements of both the whimsical, occasionally cynical humour and pathos that Davies excels at, and holds together as an extremely well-produced show.

In The Cleaner, Davies takes the role of Wicky, a crime scene cleaner who has to deal with the aftermath of various horrible things happening. Each episode primarily unfolds as a “two-hander” between Davies and someone who was affected by the crime in question; the context is that Davies has shown up to clean up the mess left behind by the crime after the police have finished their investigation, and there is inevitably someone hanging around or left behind, with varying degrees of relation to the incident.

Greg Davies and Helena Bonham Carter in episode 1 of The Cleaner

My favourite thing about the show so far, after seeing four episodes of it, is that each individual story has its own vibe to it, with Wicky remaining the one constant.

It’s clear that Wicky is a man who enjoys his job — in the fourth episode, he reveals that it is because it allows him to get a taste of how other people live, if only for a moment, and to set things right for those who had to depart before their time — and is, at his core, quite an intelligent man.

At the same time, there’s a certain degree of “salt of the earth” to him; he quite openly admits that “my job lets me buy everything I need and still have enough to get hungover every weekend”, and there are often very minor threads running in the background of each episode about his love for curry night at the pub, his friends being sick in his shoes and suchlike.

It’s his interactions with the various characters where the show really shines, though, and the way in which all of these characters are very different from one another.

David Mitchell and Greg Davies in episode 2 of The Cleaner

In the first episode, for example, Wicky is cleaning up after a wife murdered her husband in an extremely messy manner. Partway through the cleaning process, he is confronted with the wife in question (played by Helena Bonham Carter, who is still, it has to be said, exceedingly beautiful even when dressed down and covered in blood) and this leads to an extremely strained scenario in which he is very much aware that he is dealing with a murderer, but also finds himself forming something of a bond with her in the process.

In the second, meanwhile, David Mitchell does a wonderful job of portraying a tortured author whose grandmother has just been killed in a gas fire accident. Mitchell is almost certainly drawing on some of his own experience — or at least, that of the persona he perpetually puts across in public — to portray this writer as emotionally repressed to such a degree that he cried more over his cat running away than the gory, doubtless extremely painful death of his grandmother.

In the third, Wicky never gets to visit the crime scene at all, instead finding himself having to contend with the victim’s neighbour (Ruth Madeley) while waiting for someone to actually let him in to the crime scene. With his “partner” in this episode being both vegan and disabled, Wicky finds himself constantly putting his foot in his mouth to an exceedingly cringeworthy degree — but again, he forms a bond of note with this young woman.

Stephanie Cole and Greg Davies in episode 4 of The Cleaner

And in the fourth, Wicky is called to a stately home in which an elderly woman (Stephanie Cole) interrupted a burglary attempt, which resulted in the death of the burglar by him falling down the stairs and breaking his neck. Cole’s character gradually reveals herself to have many layers of unpleasantness to her, but Wicky is faced with a variety of dilemmas to contend with along the way as, again, he forms a temporary but surprisingly strong bond with her.

One of the things I’ve noticed about the show in general is how Wicky always “leaves something behind” as a result of his visits; he always makes a mark on that person’s life in some form or another.

Sometimes, this is a positive thing, such as in the third episode, where he helps Madeley’s character come to terms with how she is still in love with the man she abandoned for not respecting her veganism. At others, however, it is very much not a good thing, such as where he accidentally drops a signed Dylan Thomas book belonging to Mitchell’s character into his bucket of water, thereby completely destroying the signature and personal message inside the front matter.

Greg Davies and Ruth Madeley in episode 3 of The Cleaner

After four episodes, I’m very much convinced that this is an excellent show, and I’m a little disappointed I didn’t come across it sooner! But this is to be expected, as I tend not to follow what’s on TV right now these days; I only stumbled across this as the result of a short clip the BBC posted on YouTube the other day, featuring a snippet from Mitchell’s episode.

For everything I hate about short-form “content” and clip culture, and how it has collectively destroyed the attention spans of almost everyone, I have to at least be grateful for it in this instance, otherwise I might never have come across this genuinely excellent show!

You can watch The Cleaner on BBC iPlayer at the time of writing.

2520: The Grand Tour

I’ve been watching Amazon’s new “totally not Top Gear, oh wait it is really and we’re not even trying to hide it” show The Grand Tour recently. So far I’ve watched the first three episodes and it’s been a lot of fun.

The show follows Top Gear’s format pretty closely, usually featuring a single longer film split into two or more chunks over the course of the episode, punctuated by shorter regular features that are usually played more for laughs than anything. The longer film tends to offer a blend between Clarkson, May and Hammond’s usual silly activities and some thoughts on their cars of the week, deflecting the common criticisms of Top Gear’s latter years in which people accused it of not really being a car show any more.

The longer features have been enjoyably varied so far. One week featured a hilarious sequence of Clarkson, May and Hammond attempting to complete a military exercise — in this case, the “car of the week” was used to assist them in their getaway from an eventually successful rescue mission — while another featured an attempt to recreate the “Grand Tour” of years gone by, whereby wealthy young gentlemen would travel around continental Europe in an attempt to learn more about culture and the arts. (The latter was enjoyably undermined by Hammond turning up in a noisy Dodge and repeatedly doing donuts at every opportunity while Clarkson and May drove an Aston Martin and a Rolls-Royce in an attempt to be more “refined” respectively.)

The shorter features are a little hit and miss. “Conversation Street” — essentially a part of the show where the three talk in a rather unstructured manner similar to the “news” section of Top Gear — tends to work well, as the group has great chemistry as always, and plenty to talk about. “Celebrity Braincrash”, meanwhile, ostensibly a segment where they invite a celebrity on to participate in a difficult quiz, but where the celebrities in question inevitably die in some comedically ridiculous manner on their way to the tent that plays host to the show, is a gag that kind of ran its course in the first show and would have probably been better served being replaced by something new in subsequent episodes.

Likewise, the show’s replacement for the Top Gear test track is a cool course with some entertaining gimmicks, but “The American”, the show’s Stig-equivalent, isn’t a patch on the understated, mute hilarity of Top Gear’s anonymous driver. Like Celebrity Braincrash, “The American” is a bit of a one-note joke, though thankfully in this case not one that is repeated in every episode.

Despite its flaws, however, I’ve been enjoying The Grand Tour, and it’s proven to be an enjoyable successor to Top Gear. I watched a few episodes of the new Top Gear with Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc and didn’t hate it, though it wasn’t the same at all; the chemistry and sense of genuine friendship that Clarkson, May and Hammond had built up over the years simply wasn’t there with the new cast. Fortunately, with the existence of The Grand Tour, this is no longer an issue, since those who enjoyed Top Gear’s old way of doing things can now simply get more of the same.

Some might call that unimaginative. I would call it eminently sensible on Amazon’s part, and great for the people who just wanted more of the show they enjoyed without radical changes.

2504: Tears of the Prophets

Reached the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s sixth season this evening and despite inadvertently spoiling myself on the death of a major character some months earlier (though given Deep Space Nine’s age, I’m surprised I lasted this long without spoilers!), it remained an impactful episode and an excellent season finale.

I really like how Deep Space Nine developed. While it started as something of a “soap opera in space”, which is why some people found it a little dull when compared to the galaxy-spanning adventures of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the gradual buildup of the Dominion storyline into all-out war throughout the sixth season gave the show scope to deftly and subtly readjust its focus over time.

At the end of the sixth season, it’s still recognisably distinct from the more “mobile” Star Trek series such as The Next Generation and Voyager, but the action following Sisko and his comrades into battle against the Dominion gets the action off the station often enough to keep things fresh and interesting — and Tears of the Prophets, the sixth season finale, features some spectacular space combat sequences, an area in which Deep Space Nine generally excels.

One thing I’ve found particularly interesting about the show as a whole is the development of the character Gul Dukat. Initially presented as a character whose motivations and overall alignment wasn’t entirely clear, he’s had plenty of significant moments over the course of the series, ranging from joyful to tragedy. When he’s at his lowest ebb, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him, because the show certainly kicks the shit out of him, but Tears of the Prophets makes it abundantly clear why it took such pains to make us sympathise with Dukat as he lost everything he held dear.

Dukat’s losses drive him to absolute desperation. He willingly allows himself to be possessed by a Pah-Wraith, the antithesis to the “Prophets”, aliens who live in the wormhole that Deep Space Nine protects. The Wraith kills [REDACTED so you don’t have to suffer like I did] and apparently cuts off the connection between the Prophets and Bajor before leaving Dukat’s body. We’re left to see Dukat with a few regrets — most notably the death of [AHEM] — but an overall sense that he’s enacted vengeance that he’s satisfied with.

This sequence — and the consequences therein — highlight another reason why I enjoy Deep Space Nine: it doesn’t attempt to explain everything away with (fake but plausible) science. Oh, sure, there’s plenty of traditional Star Trek technobabble throughout the series, but also there’s a real sense that some things simply are unknowable and impossible to understand by humanity at its stage of development in the 24th century. The recognition and embracing of this is the basis of religion (or spiritualism at the very least) and Deep Space Nine as a whole handles this sort of thing very nicely. It also makes for some extremely dramatic moments, as metaphysical, “supernatural” things are far less predictable than those which can be explained by science.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the series ends, and am very glad that I’ve finally got around to watching it all the way through for the first time. I’m even more glad that doing so is a simple matter of watching it on Netflix rather than collecting however many hundred VHS cassettes would have formed the complete run on its original release!

2492: Fresh Meat

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Fresh Meat is a show by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, of Peep Show fame. Across four seasons, it concerns the lives of a houseful of university students from their initial arrival at university through to the end of their final exams.

I remember watching the first few episodes of the first season and really enjoying it, but for one reason or another I never finished watching that season. More recently, however, I’ve been watching the complete run on Netflix and enjoying it a great deal; much like one’s university life, it evolves and changes over the course of the three years/four seasons, but it manages to maintain enough coherence throughout to feel like a convincing serialised story rather than simply an episodic comedy-drama, which it could have easily turned into.

Part of the reason for its feeling of coherence is the fact that it managed to keep its core cast together for the entire run, and said cast is an excellent lineup. All of them are flawed to one degree or another, but none of them are so far beyond redemption as to become dislikeable. On the contrary, the show frequently demonstrates that behind prominent displays of bravado, there is often someone crying for help or struggling to express themselves.

One of the first characters we see in Fresh Meat is Greg McHugh’s portrayal of Howard. His first appearance is wearing only a jumper, no trousers or underpants, and drying some dead poultry on a washing line across the kitchen using a hairdryer. It would have been easy for the show to keep Howard as a deranged character, only coming out for comedy relief or gross-out factor, but even within the first episode, we quickly see that he’s been designed with a lot more thought behind him. Across the entire run, Howard actually becomes a character that it is easy to sympathise and empathise with, since in many regards he’s the character who makes the biggest strides outside his comfort zone — particularly with regard to social situations and taking perceived “risks” like asking a girl he likes out — and who manages to pick himself up repeatedly after numerous setbacks.

Zawe Ashton’s portrayal of Vod is also noteworthy, as Vod initially comes across as an arrogant, dislikeable young woman with an attitude problem. Her abrasive edge doesn’t dull throughout the entire run of the series, keeping her as a formidable person that most people would probably find tough to get close to, but piece by piece, we start to understand the difficulties she’s endured through her life and why she has ended up as the person she is. Most people probably won’t end up liking Vod as such, but we certainly understand her pretty well and can sympathise with her by the series’ end.

Kimberley Nixon’s Josie subverts the “sensible girl” trope often found in series of this nature. While initially appearing to be the cast member who has it together the most among the group, Josie’s character goes into a downward spiral early in the series, succumbing to a combination of alcoholism, stress and depression that sees her getting kicked off her dentistry course for drunkenly putting a drill through a woman’s cheek, moving to Southampton, moving back to Manchester in the hope of a relationship with fellow cast member Kingsley, and from there seemingly repeatedly sabotaging her own potential for happiness. Outwardly, Josie is one of the most cheerful, optimistic-seeming characters, but as the show progresses, she becomes one of the most tragic figures in it.

Joe Thomas’ depiction of Kingsley initially appears almost identical to his portrayal of Simon in The Inbetweeners — mostly due to his trademark rather sardonic delivery — but over time Kingsley becomes a distinctive character in his own right. Whereas Simon was fairly aloof and detached from the idiocy of the rest of the group in The Inbetweeners, Kingsley becomes a character who consistently tries too hard and often finds himself coming a cropper as a result. His relationship with Josie is initially set up to be the “Ross and Rachel” of the show through its on-again, off-again nature, but in the latter seasons in particular it becomes clear that the two are simply not right for one another. Kingsley repeatedly puts across the impression that he desperately wants to “grow up” but isn’t entirely sure how, with his attempts ranging from developing an interest in composing his own rather emo music to growing an ill-advised and rather pathetic soul patch. His desires are perhaps most explicitly demonstrated in the final season, when he gets together with an older woman and is initially ecstatic about the prospect, even when it becomes abundantly clear that she is not going to treat him well.

Charlotte Richie’s portrayal of Oregon is one of the strongest performances in the show, ironically because of how understated a lot of her delivery is. Oregon, or Melissa as she’s really called, desperately wants to appear cool and it’s immediately apparent from the outset that she’s attempted to “reinvent” herself for university life after a privileged upbringing. She has a habit of getting drawn into positions that initially seem like a good idea at the time, but which quickly turn sour. In the first season, this is exemplified through her relationship with her English tutor Professor Shales; in the final season, we see her mount a successful campaign to become Student Union president only to be lumbered with massive debt, impending legal action and the realisation that she’s little more than a “ribbon cutter” for the people who actually have power. To her credit, Oregon always tries to fight her way out of these situations and is often successful in doing so; while the adversity she encounters throughout the series is usually of her own creation — perhaps deliberately so, given the life of privilege she grew up with — she doesn’t ever buckle under the pressure, and usually comes out stronger and having learned something from her experiences. Of all the characters, she’s probably the least overtly “tragic” in one way or another; in many ways, she becomes the most admirable after initially being one of the biggest fakers there is.

Finally, Jack Whitehall’s depiction of J.P. largely consists of Jack Whitehall playing an exaggerated version of himself, but it really works, at least partly because J.P. is written as more than a one-dimensional “posho” laughing stock of a character. Over the course of the four seasons, we come to understand J.P. as a deeply confused, conflicted young man who doesn’t understand how the world works — like Oregon, he grew up with a life of privilege, but unlike her, he initially makes no attempt to reinvent himself, instead preferring to try and solve his problems by throwing money at them. In an early episode, he learns the folly of this approach when he gets taken advantage of to a ridiculous degree by his former schoolmates, and from here his growth as a character begins. Each time he proclaims that he wants to have “a large one” or that he is desperate to be regarded as “a legend”, it rings a little less true; inside, he’s a man who sees his future looming ahead, but he can’t see what lies beyond the veil at the end of his university life. That’s a scary feeling, and not just limited to university students; J.P.’s struggle to understand how life as a whole works is something that a lot of us can relate to.

All in all, Fresh Meat is an excellent (if occasionally mildly unrealistic) look at student life in the early 21st century. It captures both the soaring highs — the excitement of meeting new people and striking up relationships that may last the rest of your life; the nights out that seem like the most enjoyable, fun times ever — and the crippling lows — mounting debt; loneliness; the uncertainty of your (and everyone else’s) future — and in the process manages to depict a collection of flawed but interesting, likeable characters as they work through one of the most turbulent periods in their respective lives.

2440: Baffled by Food

Andie’s been watching a show called Great British Menu, and that show frustrates me in a number of ways. Firstly, it’s one of many, many shows that overuses the “Great British” thing. It’s okay to just say “British” sometimes. (You definitely don’t need to say it at all when talking about the “great British public”. It’s just “the public”.)

The main way it frustrates me, however, is I just don’t understand the appeal of the food these people are cooking. The show claims to celebrate the “total transformation of British cuisine during the Queen’s historic reign” (and they don’t let you forget that, repeating it roughly eleven thousand times each episode) but all I see is food that has become less about, well, food and more about, as they put it “theatre”.

I’m a simple man when it comes to food. I like a good ham, egg and chips. I like a chilli. I like a spaghetti bolognese. I like a steak. I like a good roast dinner. Those are all good dishes that taste nice. They may be “uninteresting” to the refined palate, but they do fine by me, and more importantly, they are easily scalable according to how hungry you are and how many people you’re catering for.

The “total transformation of British cuisine during the Queen’s historic reign”, meanwhile, seems to be all about compressing and pureeing everything, then sticking it in a box with some dry ice underneath so the plate of food ends up resembling a rather sparsely populated ’80s rock concert more than, well, a plate of food.

One of the things the chefs on the show are fond of doing is offering “a new take on [x]”. In the last episode I saw, there was “a new take on bacon and eggs”, and “a new take on Eton Mess”. Again, both of those things are fine as is. I certainly don’t need an onion puree and an onion tuile, whatever the fuck that is, with my bacon and eggs — even if I did like onion, which I don’t. And I definitely don’t need my Eton Mess to be “interactive” by being hidden inside a meringue shaped like a cricket ball.

I don’t know. I’m probably just being grumpy about this, although I have had food with “theatre” and enjoyed it — when I went to the Ninja restaurant in New York, the food there was served with plenty of theatrics and dry ice, but importantly, they gave you an actually decent plate of food as well. The stuff the chefs on Great British Menu come up with looks like something you’d serve as a starter to a Spartan.

If this is how British cuisine has transformed during the Queen’s historic reign, then I’m just grateful that the local chippy is still open for business.

2421: Go 8-Bit

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A new TV show launched on well-known Freeview channel Dave this evening: Dara O’Briain’s Go 8-Bit.

It’s a type of show we haven’t seen since the days of GamesMaster, only now everyone who used to watch GamesMaster is in their 30s and 40s and enjoys knob gags. Yes, it’s a show that focuses primarily on competitive computer game challenges.

A bit of cursory research reveals that it’s actually an adaptation of a live show also called simply Go 8-Bit, the creation of Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon, who take the role of regulars on the TV incarnation. O’Briain occupies the host’s chair, while McNeil and Pamphilon each have one special guest each — in the case of the first episode, topical comedian Susan Calman and England goalkeeper David James, both of whom are proud gamers in their own right. The cast is rounded out with the inclusion of journalist and podcaster Ellie Gibson, who has contributed to Eurogamer on numerous occasions in the past.

O’Briain is a natural fit for the show’s host, because his enjoyment of video games is well-documented, usually using this still-entertaining six year old clip from Live at the Apollo as evidence:

He’s proven himself to be a capable host of a variety of different shows over the past few years, ranging from the topical Mock the Week to the educational Science Club. His role on Go 8-Bit is, as you might expect, closer to the former than the latter, and for the historical and cultural context and significance of the games covered on each show, he defers to Gibson, who is the resident “expert” — she’s the show’s Richard Osmond to O’Briain’s Alexander Armstrong, for those who watch the surprisingly addictive Pointless.

The first episode featured a pleasingly diverse mix of titles, beginning with classic puzzler Tetris, continuing with Chuckie Egg, then on to Tekken, Star Wars Battlefront (the new one) and closing proceedings with a custom version of Bust-a-Move specifically created for the show, and for use with the custom Makey Makey controller, a kit which can turn anything which conducts electricity into a game or computer controller. Since their custom version of Bust-a-Move was entitled Bust-a-Moob, the custom peripherals attached to the Makey Makey were, as you might expect, human beings — specifically, an old man with an impressive beard sporting a questionable Dr. Robotnik cosplay; an old lady with an even more questionable Chun Li cosplay; a skinny, hairy dude in his pants forming a rough approximation of Zangief; and, um, a Cher impersonator.

The show made for genuinely enjoyable entertainment. The banter between O’Briain and the guests was amusing, and the trash-talk during the games was fun. It was also wise to focus the show around people who are enthusiastic about games but not necessarily good at them, too, because this made for some hilarious sights, such as an epic Tekken match largely decided by the old faithful sweep-kick to the shins move over and over and over again. There could be value in a show about e-sports professionals playing one another, of course, but it wouldn’t be Go 8-Bit; it would be an altogether more serious affair, and a scene that is already pretty well covered by the online streaming scene rather than television.

The show was, so far as I’m concerned, a resounding success: genuinely amusing, entertaining to watch, even for non-gamers, and just enough tidbits of gaming history to keep enthusiasts happy, too. And best of all, it wasn’t trying to be cool, young, dudebro or in any way hip — it understands that a significant chunk of the gaming audience these days is over 30, perhaps because most of the people involved with it are over 30.

It’s not, by any means, an in-depth documentary about the history of gaming, but it’s not trying to be — it’s simply a new format of show that, as I say, we haven’t really seen anything like since GamesMaster. The only thing I’d change, if anything, would be the slightly cringe-inducing big deal they make out of their rotating stage every time they spin it through 90 degrees so the players can face the game screen at the back of the stage, but that might just be me being a miserable old git.

That aside, it was a great show, and one that I look forward to tuning in to watch each week.

Go 8-Bit is on Dave on Thursday nights at 10pm UK time. You can find out more and watch the recently aired first episode here. (You may need to fiddle around with VPNs and whatnot if you’re watching from outside the UK.)

2414: Stranger Things

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I watched the first episode of a new Netflix show people have been raving about recently: Stranger Things. I came away very impressed with the whole thing.

Stranger Things is set in 1980s small-town America and appears to have been shot to bear more than a passing resemblance to a 1980s movie. Coming off the back of Turbo Kid, this is something that appealed a great deal to me, and it was interesting to compare how the two works approached it. While Turbo Kid took the extremely graphic approach of violent action movies of the era, Stranger Things’ first episode felt a little more like a somewhat more family-friendly movie — perhaps a PG or a 12 at most. Any violent aspects were de-emphasised in favour of depictions of close friendships between children, the adventurous souls that many ’80s kids had (partly as a result of the awesome movies we had to enjoy) and the dysfunctional nature of many nuclear families.

Stranger Things’ first episode centred around the disappearance of a young boy who had… something happen to him on his way home from a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. His sudden disappearance allows us the opportunity to meet his single mother and older brother as well as the more traditional (albeit extremely dysfunctional) family of one of his friends as they struggle to determine what happened to him. The local police force also gets involved, and in true small-town ’80s America movie tradition, they’re all seemingly lazy and incompetent, but buck their ideas up sharpish when something genuinely serious finally happens in this sleepy little town.

There’s also a touch of high school drama through the older sister of one of the central kids, who has just begun a relationship with a boy who appears to be one of the “cool” kids. In true ’80s movie tradition, their relationship revolves a lot around seeing one another in secret, even though many people — including her younger brother — know exactly what they’re up to. And there’s a strong sense that the boyfriend is very much the sexual “aggressor” in their relationship, for want of a better word, while the sister Nancy herself is keen not to get distracted from her studies; again, this is typical of ’80s movies, which often had not-so-well-hidden messages of abstinence buried in them.

And on top of all that, there’s a mysterious organisation of scientists, because there was always a mysterious organisation of scientists in ’80s movies, and some sort of weird, possibly otherworldly biological horror. And a girl with apparent telekinetic powers who escaped from their clutches.

It felt like Stranger Things was trying to cram as many ’80s movie tropes as possible into its 50-minute first episode — almost too many — but it managed to do so without buckling under its own weight, and without being too self-conscious or self-referential about it. What it ended up being was a remarkably authentic-feeling slice of ’80s nostalgia that offered enough intriguing little plot threads to make me very keen to see what happened next. It never felt over the top or overt with its ’80s references; it was just when it was set, and everything about it supported that setting, right down to the fact it looks like it was shot on film rather than video.

I’m looking forward to seeing where the show develops from its strong first episode. I’m expecting great things. Strange things, even.

2401: Episodes

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I’ve just finished watching the first season of a Showtime show called Episodes, which is available on Netflix. It stars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig as a husband and wife writer duo who head to LA to make an American version of their successful (fictional) British sitcom Lyman’s Boys, only to discover that taking a show across the pond isn’t an entirely straightforward affair. Along the way they become involved with a number of colourful characters, most notably a fictionalised version of Matt LeBlanc played by ol’ Joey himself.

The overall tone of the show is pretty much what you’d expect from something Greig and Mangan are involved with, and they’re perfectly cast in their roles as Beverly and Sean Lincoln. LeBlanc, too, is excellent, with his characterisation being made up of a combination of the popular stereotypes about him — or rather, about his most fondly-remembered part, Joey from Friends — and a surprising amount of depth and moral ambiguity.

The show is deeply critical of the way American TV networks and showbusiness in general do things. Initially brought to LA on the assurance that network executive “Merc” is in love with their show, Sean and Beverly subsequently discover that very little of what they’ve been told is true. Merc hasn’t seen their show and lots of people already have their own opinions on how best to “Americanise” the whole thing. Most notable is the casting of LeBlanc in the lead role of the headmaster Lyman, who was, in the original British version, an erudite, witty, portly and middle-aged man who developed a strong bond with his young male charges and a doomed infatuation with his school’s lesbian librarian. After a number of “suggestions” and changes far beyond Sean and Beverly’s control, what was once called Lyman’s Boys and was about a headmaster in a boys’ boarding school subsequently becomes Pucks!, a show about a lacrosse coach who is in love with a not-at-all-lesbian librarian.

Despite everything, Pucks! actually turns out to be a rather good show that test audiences respond well to, but the stress that piles on top of Sean and Beverly brings the pair of them almost to breaking point on numerous occasions. Sean’s developing friendship with LeBlanc and his overactive libido leads him to consider playing away from Beverly with Morning, the much-older-than-she-looks-but-still-smoking-hot actress who plays the librarian in Pucks!, but ultimately his own sense of integrity wins out. This doesn’t stop Beverly from overreacting and completely misreading the situation, however, leading to some spectacular tensions being released in the last episode of the first season.

Episodes is effective because, for the most part, it relies on a distinctly modern British approach to situation comedy. That is to say, it errs more on the side of comedy-drama than playing out setpieces for laughs. There’s an air of restraint that runs through the whole programme, which makes moments like the furious and rather incompetent fight between Sean and LeBlanc in the last episode all the more effective, because they are symptomatic of how the show depicts “the British condition” as a whole: bottling everything up inside, then releasing it in a spectacular frenzy when it all gets too much. LeBlanc even comments on this in the middle of the whole situation that he is, in part, to blame for: “Man, I can’t get over how you guys fight,” he says. “When we fight, it’s just all ‘fuck you’, ‘fuck you’, ‘no, fuck YOU’…”

With everything I’ve said there, you’d probably be right to assume that Episodes isn’t a show that everyone will find entirely palatable. It’s rather brutally honest and plays a lot on awkward situations that some viewers might find uncomfortable to witness. It builds tension between the characters absolutely masterfully, only releasing it when it’s absolutely at breaking point. And, as a critique of the falseness of showbusiness, it does its job extremely well.

Very interested to see how the subsequent seasons go, since the first season ended on a suitably infuriating cliffhanger.

2371: Bad Education

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My favourite thing about Netflix is the fact that it allows you to try out various series that you might not have thought to take a look at when they were on TV, nor do you feel inclined to go and pick up a DVD or Blu-Ray of them, but which nonetheless intrigued you for one reason or another. Because you’re not paying for the series itself — it’s just part of your Netflix subscription — you can try things out, and if they’re shit, well, you just stop watching them; and if they’re good, you can enjoy them to your heart’s content on your own terms.

Such was the case with Bad Education, a show originally broadcast on BBC Three. Something being broadcast on BBC Three is more often than not an immediate signal that it’s going to be shit, but since I’ve always had a certain affinity for media of any kind — books, games, films, TV series, anime, visual novels — set in a school environment, I was very much curious about it. And I’ve been pleased to discover that it’s actually not shit. It’s actually some pretty solid — and unabashedly offensive — situation comedy, albeit almost totally divorced from the reality of working in education.

Jack Whitehall stars as Alfie Wickers, an incompetent History teacher who seems rather more concerned with being friends with his (unrealistically small!) form group than actually doing his job properly. Nonetheless, he does care about the kids’ education in his own way, with many of his escapades concluding in some sort of life lesson being learned by them — or, more frequently, by him.

Alfie’s class is probably the highlight of the show, because it’s the most believable, realistic part of it, miniscule size aside. Speaking from the perspective of a former teacher, I can say with confidence that they’re the very picture of the class that every school has who are a bit shit at everything — apart from one extremely clever student, whose very presence at a school as shit as that seems completely out of place — but you can’t help but like. They remind me very much of class 9VN that I taught in the first school I worked in; for the first few weeks, I thought they were complete shitheads and would never get anything done with them, so appalling was their behaviour and attitude towards Music lessons… and then we discovered that they had a curious affinity for singing songs from musicals. So that’s what we did. Or rather, that’s what most of them did, while I set the few kids who were actually interested in studying music at GCSE and beyond to some other assignments. The class as a whole ended up being one of the few I actually look back on with a certain degree of fondness.

As for the show itself, it’s very much a comedy with a certain degree of surrealism to it. In the second season in particular, it reminds me very much of the gloriously bizarre Green Wing, especially due to the presence of Michelle Gomez, who was also in Green Wing and plays pretty much the exact same character in Bad Education. Its seeming homage to Green Wing is emphasised through chaotic, time-distorted interstitial scenes with heavy visual filters on them to denote the passing of time or the simple division between story beats in the episode — though this only really becomes a thing in the second series, where the show as a whole seems to have a much stronger sense of its identity and what it’s trying to do.

The supporting cast is solid, too. Matthew Horne’s woefully terrible (and “banter”-obsessed) headmaster Fra$er [sic] is cringeworthy in the extreme in a sort of David Brent manner, but somehow just manages to stay the right side of believable within the context of the show. Harry Enfield is excellent as Alfie’s father. And Sarah Solemani’s portrayal of Wickers’ love interest Rosie Gulliver brings a much-needed “straight man” to the proceedings, though her characterisation is a bit meandering — in particular, her short-lived dalliance with a lesbian side-plot doesn’t really go anywhere, and the show subsequently returns to the admittedly solid foundation of the “will they, won’t they” relationship between her and Alfie that has been the basis of many a successful sitcom over the years.

Bad Education isn’t the best show on television by a long shot, but it’s laugh out loud funny, well cast and snappily written. For a BBC Three show, it’s god-tier. For something you just want to whack on while you veg out in front of the television, it’s solid. As a scathing critique of the modern educational system in the UK, you may want to look elsewhere!

2333: Human Slaves in an Insect Nation

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Andie and I went to see Bill Bailey this evening. Bill Bailey is one of my absolute favourite live performers, and I always enjoy seeing his shows. I have, however, watched most of his past content many, many times on DVD and online, so I was more than ready to see some new material.

Fortunately, his new show Limboland proved to be entirely new material, albeit with a few cheeky nods back at his past work for those of us who have been enjoying his blend of music technology wizardry and comedy for years now.

In some senses, it was a little odd to have such an up-to-date Bill Bailey show, because the last time I watched one of his shows, things like social media and YouTube hadn’t worked their tendrils into every facet of our existence as they have today, and so it was momentarily jarring to hear Bailey making jokes about YouTube commenters. This feeling soon passed, though, and the content fit very nicely into his set.

As usual, he made impressive use of the music technology he had on stage to provide a true multimedia experience. Of particular note was his iPhone ringtone megamix, where he blended together some of the most commonly heard (and irritating) iPhone ringtones to create a surprisingly solid piece of electronica, and his Ambient Electronica Workshop, in which he created a fake Moby track using samples obtained from audience members. The death metal versions of Lady in Red (which he performed through gritted teeth, having spent a considerable amount of time in his past shows mercilessly mocking Chris de Burgh) and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star were also extremely memorable highlights.

Bailey’s humour is chaotic and sort of directionless in a way; he comes on stage and sort of just starts rambling — in one of his past shows he noted that he doesn’t really know how to start performances — but his manner of speaking, his friendly manner and the vivid pictures he paints with his words make him a consistent delight to listen to, whether he’s talking about the impending EU referendum or going off on some surreal tangent about lizard girlfriends or Lionel Richie thinking that all horses are white.

I think what I particularly like about Bailey is that he’s not in any way threatening or scary like some comedians can be. When he interacts with the audience, he mocks them sometimes, but it’s always a gentle, friendly mocking rather than outright acidic, spiteful comments. And when he’s just delivering his material, it’s like listening to an old friend or family member with a particular penchant for delivering anecdotes — perhaps with a few embellishments here and there — talking to you during a quiet evening in your living room as you sip port, or over the dinner table as you await the arrival of the raspberry pavlova to conclude your meal.

I’m sure that were I ever to come face to face with Bailey I would react much like he said he did when he encountered Sir Paul McCartney — that is to say, much like I reacted when I encountered the father of the adventure game, Don Woods, i.e. turning into a dribbling, awkward moron (even more so than usual, I mean) — but since that is probably unlikely to happen I can continue to enjoy the mental image of Bailey as “the friend I never had”; someone I always enjoy spending time with, and even after several years without seeing him, the second he comes back we’re right back to the way we’ve always been together.

In short, Limboland was a wonderful show, and if you have the opportunity to see him live, I highly recommend you take it.