This Time With Alan Partridge

I’ve been doing something a bit naughty recently.  I’ve been snorting on packed trains in various failed attempts to stem my chuckling at different comedy shows, holding my poxy iPhone (battery life of 20 minutes max) a hair’s breadth from my nose while peering into its fractured screen and the hilarity within (unless the sun is streaming through the window directly onto it, in which case I can’t see anything).  I’ve been doing this with Fleabag, but there’s a second prime piece of iPlayer content that’s been causing me to snigger into my keep-cup coffee on the painful Southern service to Angmering (where I’ve been spending weekends learning how to Sunday roast in my parents’ kitchen (not a euphemism)): This Time With Alan Partridge.  There was a lady next to me on the return jaunt to Clapham Junction who I caused to jolt awake with my rampant tittering at Partridge’s antics, but luckily that wasn’t the most annoying thing I did to her as I did also accidentally drop my whole jacket on her head when trying to get it out of the overhead rack without exposing too much of my soft, soft tummy flesh while reaching overhead.  So, why has this show been causing me to do so many laughs?

Firstly, let’s look at the character himself, as Alan’s been with us since 1991.  We’ll need to take this post as me ticking off sideswiping at all of his previous output, from Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge to I’m Alan Partridge.  Played so ably by Steve Coogan, Partridge’s character frontier has blurred into most performances by his co-creator, but this is more down to my tiny mind’s lack of capacity rather than Coogan’s abilities.  He still kills it in The Other Guys (watch now for immediate LOLs) and has a great time in Hamlet 2 (definitely a real film and definitely enjoyable).  Back in the nineties, Partridge parodied the kind of vile, middle-class, jingoistic, chauvinist chap who lounged across many of TV’s chat sofas, exaggerating delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness to comedic success.  But, in a subversive twist, as with House Of Cards, real life has plumbed depths deeper than writers’ darkest imagining of our dystopian day-to-day lives.  2019 is home to broadcasting men who shouldn’t be listened to whilst raving wildly in bus shelters with their trousers round their ankles, let alone telling people what to think about driving cars while wearing bad jeans (Jeremy Clarkson) or still on telly trolling minority groups after publishing fake Iraqi prisoner abuse photos in a national newspaper (Piers Morgan).

This blog isn’t really a place where I want to attack people, but Piers Morgan isn’t people: a slathering antique whose chinly ambiguity is surpassed only by the variation in distances between his beady eyes.  I firmly believe that there is a fourth type of matter in the universe in addition to solid, liquid and gas, and this is Piers Morgan’s chin.  What even is it?  Before I get worked up, I should land my point: in comparison, Partridge suddenly seems harmless, with just enough charm that you sympathise with his terrible ambition but not too much pathos that you can’t laugh your head off when it all inevitably goes wrong for him.

Secondly, then, This Time apes a much-loved staple of teatime telly so well that we really do need to ask ourselves some tough questions as a nation: why do people tolerate mindless twaddle like The One Show?  It’s just so broad that it’s dripping in blandness.  It’s nice enough, but, for a bastard like me, being nice is not enough.  The moment I hear the opening note of the theme tune, I get shivers down my spine.  Surely there is more to life.  I remember a family holiday to Menorca when my niece was still crawling.  My dad’s first priority when entering any room is to turn the TV on (guess where my love of telly comes from) and villas on Mediterranean holiday are islands are no exception to this rule.  There we were, free of the banality of UK weekday life, ready to kick back and relax, escaping the drizzle, when suddenly: “Ooooooone, do-do-do-do-do-do, ooooooone, do-do-do-do-do-do…”  We had come all this way, only to be subjected to VTs about dog-walking in Wales and a live interview with someone who once did something underwhelming.  I immediately jumped in the pool.  The only good thing to come of it is that my toddler niece learned to blow raspberries in tune to the music, demonstrating a precocious skillset in recognising tosh and, also, the performing arts.

A former flatmate of mine used to work on the production team, going out around the UK making VTs.  I was able to ask him who the people were behind the cameras sneering and jeering at the hosts, like some sort of rent-an-audience designed to make The One Show feel like more of an impromptu spectacle than a settee-based conversation slowly dying in front of a floor-to-ceiling window.  Often, on his way out the door after a day’s editing of features on Britain’s favourite paving slab, he would be intercepted by a manager, innocently asking why he wasn’t hanging around to watch the live show.  He’d then lose his evening to providing the in-studio atmosphere, understandably reluctant to stay late as you would be in any job, though instead of finishing a deck or bashing out emails, he was forced to pretend to enjoy The One Show, possibly seeing a Hollywood A-lister asked for their views on the sexualisation of pre-pubescent girls or witnessing a politician being pushed to provide a response to the question: what is your favourite owl?

At this point, I should probably mention This Time With Alan Partridge in some shape or form.  The premise is that there exists a live BBC magazine-format show (This Time) which desperately needs a step-in male host.  Cue the With Alan Partridge bit.  As viewers, we therefore revel in the live links as they are filmed, the downtime in the studio as they play out and some of the actual VTs themselves.  Alan is true to form, desperate to go to any length to make his appointment permanent, drawing the limelight back to his terrible chat but then getting annoyed when his moments to shine drown in misjudgement, mediocrity or disaster.  Not only is the fake show stolen from Partridge, but the actual televisual format this post is about is also stolen.  Susannah Fielding plays Jennie Gresham, the existing host who must slide up the sofa felt to make way for Partridge’s man-spread legs and scotch egg breath.  She goes beyond being spot on in convincing us she is a real host, arriving at some kind of comedy peak where her shocked responses and professional cover ups merit more praise than I can conjure with my by-comparison shoddy prose.

As ever, a warm welcome is extended by me to Felicity Montagu (loved for her work in Nighty Night) as Partridge’s suffering-addicted assistant, Lynn.  She shuffles onto set when the cameras are off, seeing to Partridge’s refreshment needs (“Glass of water!”) or to slut-shame Jennie Gresham passively aggressively in relation to her choice of blouse.  More Lynn would really only improve things, but there’s a steady stream of guests and contributors who bring vitality to the comedy, from Ruth Duggan’s refusal to agree with anything Partridge says, to Simon Denton’s inability to make his giant interactive social media screen work properly (which is gratifying in itself given that no programme ever has been improved by the inclusion of a tweet expressing the opinion of Dave from High Wycombe).

Despite all the praise I’ve heaped here, though, the main office conversation around This Time With Alan Partridge concerns itself with mixed reviews, dwindling audiences and no recommissioning (an ironic situation for Alan).  To borrow some of his own self-assurance, I would conclude that anyone that doesn’t get the humour in this Partridge vehicle is completely stupid.  The awkward flow is all part of the concept, with every second orchestrated to enhance its own ridiculousness.  If you can’t bear the cringe with each unexpected silence, then, by all means, watch the actual One Show, or Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan, because you’ve truly found your level.  Meanwhile, I’ll go back to ruining public transport with my content consumption, which has now expanded beyond overloud staccato laughter while viewing the iPlayer into brandishing the dodgy cover photography of I, Partridge: We Need To Talk About Alan while I indulge in reading Partridge’s autobiography on the Tube.

Narcos: Mexico

There’s been a lot of debate around this and nobody can seem to agree.  Are we in or are we out?  Is Narcos: Mexico just another series of Narcos, or is it a different show entirely?  I didn’t even know if I was supposed to put a colon in the title between Narcos and Mexico.  However, I seem to be writing a separate one of these posts about it, so this is proof at last that’s not just a fourth series of one programme, but a fully-fledged boxset in its own right.  Sure, both exist in the same universe and both can stand alone, as you don’t need to have seen one to understand the other, but, if I’ve treated Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead as independent entities, then we must be consistent here.

Truth be told I rolled straight into Narcos: Mexico after finishing Narcos – it was a logical progression and the Netflix algorithm was fairly insistent that because I watched Narcos I should watch Narcos: Mexico.  Confidently, I clicked to play was immediately devastated that the Colombian Spanish I had subconsciously learned from Narcos, however, didn’t allow much latent intelligibility with the Spanish on offer in Narcos Mexico (which, in case you can’t tell, is Mexican Spanish).  My linguistic geekiness was devastated and I was subsequently forced to pay much closer attention to the subtitles than I had been intending.  This issue was also compounded by one of the leading cast: Diego Luna.  Stepping into the Escobarian shoes of Wagner Moura as chief antagonist, Luna plays Félix Gallardo, the drugs kingpin whose rise and pursuit forms the main narrative arc of the drama. When I say play, I mean mumbles, as he violates his lines as if his mouth is full of muffin and he’s in a rush to get the words out before taking another massive bite.  Before knickers are got into twists, I should point out my longstanding fandom of Luna; coming across Y Tu Mamá También on DVD back in my student days, I vowed that his performance in this influential film would always see him endowed with my utmost respect.  I confess that Gael García Bernal has more fun in the film, and not just because he has a mullet, but the point I am making here is that everyone should see this film and that Luna is a god for being in it.

But yeah, his drugs czar lacks something.  Whereas Moura got to be all moody stares while seeming to revel in the bloodlust his career in narcotics required of him, Luna is dominated by furrowed, sweaty brows, exasperation at his staff and possessed of a mild imposter syndrome.  I’ll forgive this, though, as it’s a tough part to crack and a tougher act to follow (though the chronology actually precedes Narcos – confused emoji).  What we do have is a cracking set of US narcos hot on his trail, clearly undeterred by his poor diction (including an angrier Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men).  Our introduction to their world is delivered from the perspective of Kiki Camarena, played by the underrated Michael Peña.  Mostly wearing what appears to be one of the awful jackets from Sex Education, Camarena is quickly het up about the Guadalajara unit’s ineffectiveness in the face of the biggest marijuana farming enterprise ever seen.  But Camarena is ever resourceful and he don’t always play by the rules, brought to life thrillingly when he sneaks onto a bus transporting impoverished rural Mexicans to work at the cannabis plantation.  His disguise?  He messes his hair up, proving correct the assumption that poverty is often indicated by bad haircuts.

Providing the kind of hedonism that looks great on screen, we have Rafael Caro Quintero, Gallardo’s childhood friend and the mastermind behind the strain of weed that launches the whole operation.  A constant loose cannon of a threat to his pal’s business aims, he doubles the jeopardy at play in any illegal narcotics operation, not least with his very exciting dalliance with rich girl, Sofía.  These two revel in japes that make their eventual coming a cropper truly inevitable, providing excellent entertainment along the way.

Further complications come from Gallardo’s political entanglements, laying bare the rampant corruption that allows him to function in the first place.  With character traits as sinister as their suits are tacky, these men lurk constantly at his heels to exacerbate his stress at every turn.  Why anyone would choose such a career is beyond me.  You have loads of money, which is nice, but that only lasts until your violent murder, whereas a peaceful retirement must surely be a better, if impossible prospect.  Some of his perplexity was shared by me as a viewer though, as I unavoidably missed some of the subtitles explaining who specifically these chaps were, and ended up having to accept that men in bad suits dogging him at every turn were just par for the course.

I’ll conclude that Netflix is mostly right: if you liked Narcos, you’ll like Narcos: Mexico.  It is simply more of the same.  Heart-stopping drama is punctuated by the same standard tropes: stakeouts in period automobiles, tense cat-and-mouse near misses, cigarettes and moustaches.  The soundtrack is gunfire and Spanish swearwords.  The setting is sweaty dust and dusty sweat, though 1980s Guadalajara fails to excite the traveller in me as much as 1990s Colombia.  I couldn’t help wondering what the big idea was here: are we going to complete an encyclopaedic dramatization of every illegal substance oligarch South America has ever produced?  Either way, until Narcos: Uruguay is available for streaming, you can get your fix of that narco life with this show, but if true stories, class As, murders and Mexican sun are not crucial ingredients in your boxset viewing, then simply viewing Narcos (as in, Narcos: Original) is sufficient.

Happy Valley

Yet another season of How To Get Away With Murder has appeared on Netflix and I seem to be watching it out of a sense of duty more than anything else.  But it feels less fun than before.  I’m struggling to relate.  The characters rarely have a hair out of place, whereas someone accused me of having a perm the other day.  That, and the American gloss of each week’s new episode of Riverdale (which is equal parts cheese and artificial sweetener – a sickening combination), had left me craving something grittier.  And that’s because Brits love grit.  Our natural habitat is drizzle under grey overcast skies.  Our national pastime is wincing at Brexit.  Our approach to public transport is never to make eye contact.  Revisiting Fleabag for last week’s blog had reawakened my genetic predilection for the darker things in life.  Then I discovered Happy Valley.

Yeah, I know I’m late again.  Two seasons of this crime drama had gone out between 2014 and 2016, but my discovery of this gritty-as-gravel northern fare is timely while the internet buzzes with speculation about when 2019’s rumoured third series will air.  But, whether early adopter or bandwagon clamberer, the main thing is that my need for British grit was met in the Netflix menu by the sight of Sarah Lancashire in a fluorescent police jacket scowling into the bleak weather of some sort of Yorkshire scenery.  Where do I begin?  Let’s start with Sarah Lancashire.  It’s lame to mention an actor’s early work, but Lancashire did spend 338 episodes (and a feature-length special) of Coronation Street smoking cigarettes behind the bar of the Rovers Return and saying “Oh, Curly” on a regular basis as Raquel Watts née Wolstenhulme.  Then she branched out into the epic biopic Seeing Red (2000), where she went about adopting needy children – what a hero!

Therefore, thanks to gaps in my following of her career, my next encounter with her was the opening scene of Happy Valley, where she arrives at an unfolding crime (a drug-addled young man threatening to torch himself in a kiddies’ playground) and tries to talk down the perpetrator.  Here was the grit I had been after.  Heroin addiction in the family?  Check.  Problem relationships with her children?  Check.  An irreverent approach to the emotional upheaval involved in deciding you ought to set yourself on fire?  Check.  Wet pavements all around?  Check.  I mean, let’s hear it for wet pavements.  Happy Valley’s truest grit comes from the grim townscapes on which its characters run around chasing each other: paving slabs, concrete, tarmac.  All look naff dry.  All look even more dispiriting when glistening with that morning’s downpour.  It almost makes your eyes suffer.  I love it.

But nobody seems to suffer more than Catherine Cawood.  Before we even start series one, she has lost a daughter to suicide, is raising a practically orphaned grandson, been divorced, regressed in her career and painted her kitchen cupboards really garish colours.  As the action unfolds, the bruises accumulate, with some of the graphic violence proving hard to stomach.  But the torture is also emotional, which can lead to the feeling that Lancashire ends up crying in every scene.  However, this makes things seem too depressing.  She gets the best lines and delivers them so well that a plucky humour and no-nonsense approach permeates all scenes.  In short, it’s an incredible performance and I’m only sad that I’ve now already seen every episode currently available.

Around her, though, is gathered a cast of Halifax citizens who interconnect in all manner of disturbing ways in order to drive the plot forward.  Series one focuses on a very ill-conceived kidnapping and ransom storyline that seems to escalate from a denied salary increase to aggressive hostage-taking within a couple of conversations.  In the second season, we combine a serial murder investigation with an extramarital affair gone wrong and a very shifty teaching assistant trying to access Cawood’s grandson.  As I said, it’s a big crock of grit and it’s exactly what I was after.  For me, prominence in this Halifax cast must be given to Siobhan Finneran, who plays Catherine’s sister.  Given that her addiction problems are referenced in the opening lines of the first scene, it’s a tense inevitability that that wagon will be fallen off.  In fact, her array of impractical cardigans is a distracting yet well characterised reminder that she is somewhat of an impractical person.  If, like me, you spent your youth watching late-night films on Channel 4 that you were probably not old enough for, you’ll recognise Finneran from Rita, Sue And Bob Too.  Hopefully this film’s title gives you an indication of its bawdy subject matter, but I’m in no way ashamed to say I’ve seen it several times and even forked out for tickets to the play it’s based on.  I recommend this to all of you.  And, funnily enough, George Costigan, who plays Nevison Gallagher, played this film’s Bob to Finneran’s Rita, so I’m hoping Sue gets in on the action again for series three.

Yet again, I’m gently poking fun at Happy Valley, but it’s a boxset that everyone should see.  There’s very little wrong with it: bad characters can be identified by their constant drinking of beer cans, the same group of men spend almost all their time unloading bags of sand off a truck on one farm, the action escalates very quickly in the first series.  This is because there is so much right with it.  And the rightest thing of all is that this isn’t American gloss.  There are no shoot outs and high-speed car pursuits.  In fact, the climactic chase of the second series involves two relatively gym-averse middle-aged characters struggling not to slip on railway sleepers (wet with drizzle, obviously).  Yet this apparently plodding action is miles tenser than anything else.  Sure, nobody looks as cool as an NYPD cop in a bulky bright yellow police jacket with an extendable truncheon hanging off it, but Happy Valley gripped me like nothing else has in a long time.  Your life will be improved by the quality of Sarah Lanchashire’s performance and the relief that this isn’t your real life, as there’s no happiness in this valley.

Fleabag

It seems I’ve been going around handing out national treasure status to people willy nilly.  So let’s just recap those who have been adorned with this accolade so far on Just One More Episode.  I’m pretty sure I would have said this about Julia Davis for her work in Nighty Night (and Gavin & Stacey), plus there’s Michaela Coel from Chewing Gum.  Surely there were others, but I’m not about to read through eighty-something blogposts to check.  And it doesn’t even matter, anyway, as we are today adding another name to the list.  Step forward and wink at us cheekily, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  There are three reasons she could be here.  The first is Killing Eve, but I haven’t actually watched that yet, as I kind of find assassins a bit unappealing (it’s a meh career, like being a surveyor) and, although it’s trapped in my iPhone on the iPlayer app (ha – two things starting with a little i) I just haven’t got around to it.  She also did Crashing, but I haven’t seen that either…  No, this week, we are doing Fleabag.

We’ll skip over my viewing’s genesis here (a friend literally asked if anyone had seen it, and I immediately died inside because I hadn’t), and get straight into why it’s great.  Fleabag is unflinchingly honest.  The opening scenes of episode one, series one revolve around our (anti-)heroine, Fleabag, actually called Kate, as she receives what is essentially a booty call.  She bends over backwards to accommodate her gentleman caller, rushing to get her body ready for his standards before finally opening the door and putting just as much trouble into pretending the whole preparation performance was no trouble at all.  I was floored by the honesty.  It felt ballsy and painful, laying bare the fact that, even in 2016, women were still busting a gut to perpetuate the myths men expect of them.  The issue was treated with even more transparency, thanks to Waller-Bridge’s pieces to camera.  That’s right, just like Miranda’s end-of-pier winks, Fleabag breaks the fourth wall and interacts directly with the viewer.  We are let in on her secrets, which in turn boosts her universality through intimacy and proximity.

But why is Kate called Fleabag?  It seems to be a mixture of her lack of self-esteem and her conviction that she probably isn’t a good person.  I don’t know about you, but I sometimes look at myself and conclude that I am a bit of a shit.  The other week, when returning from dinner with friends, a large man had collapsed in the street.  Some Chinese tourists seemed to be on the case with wrestling his gargantuan frame from the concrete and A&E was just around the corner.  My friends were desperate to stop and help, but I refused to break my stride (I wanted to go home and watch Netflix).  My pals were appalled at my assertions that it was probably the man’s own fault, the Chinese seemed to be coping and, as mentioned, A&E was just around the corner.  Well, like me, and like all of us, Fleabag seems to end up doing bad things.  The first series gradually reveals in flashback the poor choices she has made, costing her dearly and leading to her current predicament.

There’s laugh-out-loud comedy, driven by the awful characters that constitute her family.  But, because of the above, this is only ever a knife edge from being sliced into desperate sadness.  The show’s origins as a one-woman show blow my mind – what could have been packed into those ten minutes which Waller-Bridge first produced after a friend challenged her?  And now look!  She’s a few months younger than me but has achieved about 15 times as much.  Why haven’t my friends been challenging me?  Although, I suppose they challenged me to help that fallen man and I just ignored them.  But yes, it seems the one-woman show is a rich environment for narrative brilliance.  If you’ve never seen Luisa Omielan, please do so immediately.  Or Google Tiannah Viechweg’s Carnival Queen and get gut-punched by its strength.  I’ll wait.

Fleabag, though, is an ensemble.  Sian Clifford’s performance as her older sister, Claire, rings frighteningly true.  I’m reminded of so many people who confuse happiness with success and who conflate ambition with humanity.  Claire’s expressions are electric and her conflicts with Fleabag mirror the worst parts of sisterly relations in a way never seen before.  Meanwhile, having far too much fun as the self-centred godmother-cum-future stepmother is Olivia Colman.  I’m not sure why she’s only cropping up now and wasn’t in my initial list of national treasures (see her work in Peep Show and watch out for her coming to The Crown).  Sure, she’s got an Oscar now in her downstairs cloak, but she still knows where the good writing is (I mean, in the programme, Fleabag, right; not necessarily in this sentence of this blogpost…)

Series two has just begun (praise be) and I managed to catch its first episode on my phone while flying from Innsbruck to Gatwick.  Despite the lack of sleep on a boozy work ski jolly, despite the appalling Samsung J5 headphones I am forced to use, despite the tiny iPhone screen and despite wanting to be anywhere but on an economy flight, I’m going to bandy around words like masterpiece and genius.  We open on a family dinner, with most characters as yet unreconciled from the fallout of the previous season’s climax, some months ago.  Throughout the thirty minutes, we barely leave the restaurant, the claustrophobia and tension increasing with every additional pouring of wine (by the very enthusiastic waitress, with Waller-Bridge making even an incidental character hilarious, and tragic).  The sisters end up confronting each other in the loos; a bombshell is dropped and handled with such brutality that my gasping could be heard three rows back.

So, here’s me, staggered someone can produce such telly with such consistency.  This is the bleakest black humour, with raw truths I can barely handle, yet jam-packed with LOLs, cheekiness and bad human behaviour.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge, welcome to the hall of national treasures.

Big Mouth

I’ve watched another animation on Netflix.  It’s not big, but… it is clever.  In fact, it’s actually called Big Mouth, so parts of it are, in fact, big as well.  So, to conclude, it is both big and clever.  And I watched it.  And here you are, reading about it.  Right, that’s the awkward opening passages out of the way, so let’s plough on with making sarcastic remarks about it, all while feeling a little guilty that there’s a remote chance its creators might one day read this and think me a prick for commenting on it.  I’ve frankly no right.  I’ve just counted up how many shows of my own I have created, and the answer is: none.  Also, there’s no chance of them ever reading this self-indulgent nonsense, so let’s agree that I’ve got nothing to lose.

The good news is that Big Mouth is a good time.  You might have seen it in your various Netflix menus: crudely drawn children and hairy, horned monsters.  What a combination.  But it’s not quite the pervy mess it sounds like (or is it?).  Big Mouth is all about puberty and adolescence.  Set in an American middle school, our focus is a bunch of young teens at various stages along the hormonal journey, some on the lookout for that first hallowed pubes, others coping with bumfluff taches and uncontrollable, confusing sexual urges.  Chaperoning them on this voyage of development is an array of adults who should know better, but don’t.

Cast your mind back to your schooldays.  Male classmates were divided into the early adopters, sporting their adult bodies at the age of 12 and buying everyone alcohol as a result, and the Peter Pans, trapped in an eternal babylike state of knee-highness and squeaking to communicate.  I remember after PE in year 7 when the whole class, rather than getting changed back into our uniform, got distracted by comparing who had the most impressive armpit hair development – we might as well have ranked ourselves in order of undergrowth.  The advanced puberteers derided the non-starters, while the hormonally under-resourced eyed their hirsute brethren with suspicion.  It’s in this pickling predicament that our two Big Mouth heroes find themselves, with Andrew Glouberman’s precocious development exceeded only by Nick Birch’s desperate desire to harvest his own crop of precious pubes.

I’ll stop myself here as I’m painfully aware that this is a fairly graphic way to talk about underage bodies.  Rest assured, this pales in comparison to how this process is handled in the show: what images my words can’t bring to life are rendered in colourful animation across your screens.  If you’re prudish or easily offended, don’t watch (don’t read this, either).  And if you think my intentions are sinister (which they’re not) just wait till you come across the main conceit of Big Mouth: the hormone monsters.  To represent the bad influences these biological changes have on behaviour, a hairy, horned accomplice appears in the lives of these children to guide them through their new urges.  And by guide, I mean persuade them to give in so that we as the viewer can enjoy the most extreme and entertaining circumstances.  It’s like an imaginary friend, only they’re not telling you to burn things, just to hump them.

If you think it’s just the boys getting the pubescent scrutiny, I can assure you that girls come in for the same treatment.  Whether that’s Missy pleasuring herself with her plush toy during a school camp out, or Jessi’s first period coming on a day she chose to wear white shorts, everyone can enjoy getting offended here.  There’s a certain shared experience with the characters’ disastrous attempts to make sense of their changing bodies, especially when you factor in the cluenessness of the parents to deal with any of it.  Nick’s dad’s wholly inappropriate responses are beyond slimey (pretending to be a pussy), while Jay’s mum (or mom, rather) couldn’t be less interested in any of her boys, let alone the youngest – especially when there is wine to focus on – leaving him to forge relationships with household cushioning.  The teachers are even worse, with a special mention going to Coach Steve.  At first, this individual annoys with his constant appearances, but he becomes a well-placed foil to so many of the storylines that he inevitably endears himself.

Let’s therefore laugh at our obsession with sex by revisiting our first encounters with its mysteries through the eyes of middle schoolers and their hormone monsters.  Big Mouth is as comfortable being intelligent with thought provocation as it is making vagina jokes (with the voice of Kristen Wiig as a really friendly vagina).  There’s a song in every episode and the voice talent is stellar, with Maya Rudolph unrecognisable as Connie the hormone monster, but Andrew Rannells (often the best thing in Girls, apart from the girls) entirely recognisable as the quick-witted Matthew.  With its imaginative and subversive approach (and strokes of genius, such as illustrating minds blown by having characters’ heads literally explode), Big Mouth throws open our societal inconsistencies in the treatment of so many issues, as well as recognising hilariously that we are all just about managing to keep on top of our hormones, even as adults.  How big and clever is that?