Extras

Part of coming to terms with adult life is realising that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  The most interesting Facebook post I’ve seen in recent times (yes, I still seem to be on Facebook) was a friend asking for tips about how to stack Tuppaware in a dishwasher.  There is probably nothing more banal, and yet the engagement rates were high.  This is, after all, adulting.  Luckily, I’m already really good at stacking Tuppaware in a dishwasher (it’s all in the angle and the anchoring), but this did cause me to reflect on the stage of adulthood I am finally reaching.  2018’s sole goal is to buy a home.  After twelve years of professional flat sharing, I might finally be able to lounge around watching boxsets in my underpants like some sort of hairy, sofa-based mammal without people wrinkling their noses at me (unless the neighbours can see in through the windows of any new place I buy).  This has meant that adverts on TV that just seemed like total white noise before have become endowed with a new significance.  Take DFS.  I’ve never thought about buying a sofa before, but I do know there’s always a sale on and you don’t have to pay anything for six years or something.  And also 0% finance.  I don’t really know what that is, but it’s very important and lots of adverts say it.  I might start offering 0% finance on me as a person and see if that makes me more popular.  It’s got to be better than consuming boxsets in my underpants.  Suddenly, DFS ads started to capture my attention in a new way.  And then the voiceover sounded familiar.  And then I realised it was Ashley Jensen.  And then this reminded me of what a delight she was in Extras.  And now here I am writing another of these blog posts about it.  Shall we?

We probably all remember the huge fuss that ensued when Ricky Gervais was faced with topping the genre-redefining comedic achievements of The Office.  Extras was different in two ways: moving away from the mockumentary structure and reflecting Gervais’s propulsion to the A-list with cameos from some of Hollywood’s biggest household names.  And Barry from Eastenders.

Extras follows Andy Millman, an absolute everyman stuck working as a background artist while dreaming of getting his own sitcom off the ground.  The various film sets that form his workplaces offer a new setting for each episode and a supporting cast that replenishes itself throughout.  Facing the daily prospect of unflattering costumes and waiting around all day doing nothing alongside Andy is best friend, Maggie (played by Ashley Jensen, hence the banging on about her in this week’s tedious and irrelevant opener).  Together, they both end up confronted by the whole gamut of awkward social faux-pas, from casual racism, to homosexuality, via treatment of the disabled, and everything else, including genocide, but that’s a bit more than a faux-pas.  In this respect, Extras has dated itself slightly, as our views on so many of these things are far more woke than they were in 2005.

Where the humour still shines through is the ridiculous moments that Maggie and Andy’s naivety and haplessness thrusts them into.  I would now like to run through some of my favourites:

Custard

In the Les Dennis episode, Andy has a role in a pantomime alongside the fallen-from-glory TV personality.  On choreography is Bunny, an overbearing stage father whose adult daughter, Lizzie, is making up the chorus.  Maggie, who happens to be an old school friend, is reluctantly reunited with Lizzie and ends up invited to Lizzie’s very depressing birthday party (hilarious in itself).  She somehow ends up singing Food Glorious Food, but Bunny chimes in over and over to make sure she hits the right notes for custard.  I have since never been able to hear the name of this vanilla dessert sauce without his voice going right through me.

Patrick Stewart’s face

The famous cameo appearances all involve a real person playing an awful version of themselves.  In Extras, Patrick Stewart is only interested in situations that involve a lady’s clothes falling off and, despite her scrabbling around to get dressed, he’s already seen everything.  He recounts these scenes with deadpan earnestness and then, once finished, his little face glazes over, terribly pleased with itself, so that you’ll never see him in the same light again.

Prophylactic or sheath

In series two, Andy lands a gig on an epic fantasy movie, starring a bratty Daniel Radcliffe.  Apparently only just reaching sexual maturity, Radcliffe tries to chat up Maggie in the catering bus, revealing he already has an unravelled condom ready to go.  He then accidentally flicks this and it lands on Dame Diana Rigg’s head.  Her withering expression goes to show why she totally nailed the role of Queen of Thorns years later in Game of Thrones.

Pug pug

As the story unfolds, Millman’s sitcom gets picked up, goes into production and finally airs, despite ending up a million miles away from the original vision.  Millman gets access to VIP treatment in a bar, and ends up rubbing shoulders with David Bowie, who in turn takes to the piano and composes an on-the-spot ditty about this silly little fat man.  Cue the rest of the bar’s patrons joining in with the refrain.

Darren Lamb

Don’t worry, Stephen Merchant is here as well everyone.  He plays Millman’s atrocious agent, barely aware of the name of his client’s sitcom (When The Whistle Blows) and always clad in a naff dad coat that looks wrong wherever he goes.  Their exchanges in his office have consistently guaranteed me a hearty LOL.

The sparkling water bottle

In the Sir Ian McKellen episode, Millman apes a visiting old school friend’s chat-up technique, without realising what’s in the bottle he has just been chucking about with affected nonchalance.  It’s worth watching all of Extras just to see his puffy cheeks and bulging eyes when he realises the terrible mistake he has made.

But what’s the point of all these highlights?  They all show us that adult life is hard, because you have to grow up into your own disappointments.  It’s a series of excruciating moments surrounded by awful people.  So, maybe you expected that, by now, your hit sitcom would be enjoying rave reviews, but you’re actually using social media to scoff at other people’s approaches to stacking Tuppaware in a dishwasher.  Extras may have some dated humour and deviate from real life with its ready availability of acting royalty, but as an exercise in expectation management, it really hasn’t aged a bit.