TV Review

Back To Life, BBC1, Mondays at 10.35pm

TELEVISION comedy these days is all about risk. One of the reasons Fleabag became so successful is because it reveals the dark, inner thoughts of a vulnerable woman who feels she’s on the margins of society. Dysfunctionality abounded.

But what of the premise for Back To Life (also a BBC 3 baby)? This is also a high wire walk of a show, where the protagonist could fall off at any time.

Back To Life features the story of Miri Matteson, another emotionally damaged woman whom we learn quickly has spent the past 18 years at Her Majesty’s pleasure. And we can only assume HM must have been very upset at Miri to detain her for that length of time.

So how can we laugh at the adventures of a violent ex-con? Easily, thanks to the writing of Daisy Haggard, who also plays the lead role and has revealed terrific comedy talent in past series’ such as Uncle and Episodes.

In the opening episode, Haggard managed to have lots of fun with this women’s arrival into the modern world by bringing a delightful HG Wellsian Time Machine bafflement to the character who can’t quite believe that the heroes still Blu-tacked to her bedroom wall have passed on, such as Bowie. “At least Jamie Oliver is still with us,” she says in upbeat voice.

Miri can’t quite believe her boyfriend Dom has moved on either, given he wrote to her in prison. “At first.” But then passed on regular good wishes. However, we learn Miri’s parents, played by Geraldine James and Richard Durden – fast becoming experts on eggshell treading - had been lying to her to keep her spirits up. There’s lots of pathos to be had when she nips round to say hello to Dom, but he wants nothing to do with her. And laughs too, when his wife mistakes her for a charity collector.

The sad, awkward, Fleabag-like laughs continue when Miri tries to find work. “They’re paying £6.80 an hour,” she says to mum, in delighted voice. And when she turns up for her job interview; “Your CV is quite crappy,” says her prospective employer. “That’s a matter of perspective,” counters Miri. The chip shop boss argues; “You’ve done nothing since 2000.” “I went travelling.” “Where?” Miri goes on the defensive and suggests other employers are interested in her skills. “Who?” asks the interviewer, and she names Woolworths and Blockbuster.

The show, so far, is packed full of dark, comic characters. It was hard not to laugh at the hopeless, self-absorbed and disinterested social worker whose only piece of sound advice to Miri was ‘Don’t Google yourself.” And there was fun to be had in her coming to terms with terms such as Airbnb, selfies and hipsters.

It’s hard to say however how this series will play out. There’s a concern the more we learn of why Miri was in the jug, the less we can empathise with her. Certainly, given the fact her parents’ wall is painted PSYCHO BITCH and her own mother has hidden the steak knives this suggests the crime could have involved the discharge of blood from a human body.

What will also be hard to sustain is the anachronism gags. Yes, this device worked brilliantly in Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes, but those series’ involved someone actually being transported back in time. Mira hasn’t fast-forwarded 18 years into the future. She hasn’t been in a coma. She hasn't been on the same desert island Tom Hanks once shared with a basketball.

We're asked to suspend disbelief, to forget that prisons have cable and wi-fi these days. Miri has evolved and learned like the rest of us, albeit in a world of severely restricted viewing.

This is essentially a psychological drama, an exercise in understanding what the pokey can do to people, and of the rehabilitation process. It's serious grown up comedy. And that's why there’s no question Episode 2 will be worth watching. If only to see if the lag tale has legs.