The exclamation mark in the title was one reason to approach new sitcom Henpocalypse! (BBC2, Tuesday) with caution. Talk about trying too hard. Only clown shoes and a T-shirt saying, “I’m mad, me!” would be more obvious.
The idea - hen party trip coincides with end of the world - was hardly original. Zombie apocalypse skits have been staggering around since Shaun of the Dead. But maybe there was a good reason for wheeling it out again. A script chock-full of sparkling banter perhaps? That seemed unlikely when the bride-to-be, having a loo break at the side of the road, announced: “It’s my hen do and I’ll wazz if I want to.” Very Austenesque.
Add a shedload of “hilarious” hen night props, and a cop who turns out to be a stripper (never saw that coming), and you too may have been praying for the apocalypse to get a wriggle on.
Written and created by Caroline Moran (sister of Caitlin, with whom she co-wrote Raised by Wolves), Henpocalypse! did not have the best of starts. I liked the idea of women warriors fighting over the few men left, and occasionally a nicely turned line would surface. Overall, though, the material was thin and tired, and there are five more episodes to go.
For an altogether more enjoyable experience there was the return of Sanditon (ITVX/STV Player, Thursday). Andrew Davies’ adaptation of an unfinished novel by Jane Austen may look like just another carriages at dawn number, but there is more going on under the bonnet than first appears.
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Sanditon, we were told, was now “the country’s most fashionable resort”, a place where all the best people come to paddle. The streets are certainly very clean. All those horses trotting up and down the main drag and not a dropping in sight. That’s breeding for you.
This being Austen country, the place also boasts one of those much sought-after singletons in possession of a good fortune, in this case a woman rather than a man. Georgiana (Crystal Clarke), now 21, has been given the keys to her inheritance. Having recently tangled with a right swine, as Austen would have described such fellows had she hailed from Glasgow, Georgiana is in no mood for marrying. Her chum Charlotte (Rose Williams) is, but her intended is not her true love. What are the young ladies to do?
Sanditon is a sprightly mix of romance, silliness, and class war topped off with wit. Most of the best lines are snapped up by Anne Reid, playing Lady Denham. As the third and final series opens, Sanditon’s answer to Downton’s dowager countess is trying to rid her nephew, Sir Edward (Jack Fox), of his wild ways. In what is a sly nod to Davies’ earlier work, the “cure” involves a sopping wet white shirt.
As a bonus, the new series stars James Bolam as a wealthy investor who appears to know Lady Denham from old. A likely tale.
It has been more than 20 years since viewers were invited into the home of The Osbournes, Ozzy, Sharon, and the kids. What was then a groundbreaking reality TV format resurfaces in At Home with the Furys (Netflix).
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The Furys in question are Tyson, heavyweight champion of the world, his wife Paris, and their six children.
The hook for the series is Fury’s retirement, something he has tried before but without success. As has been well-documented, Fury has struggled with depression, addiction and other demons. As his wife says, he needs routine, so how will he cope being stuck at home?
So begins a sort of “Fury watch” in which viewers are invited to hang around to see how quickly he cracks. “Three weeks since retirement” says a caption. “Five weeks …”
Was this exploitation of a vulnerable individual, or a candid look at mental health and what it takes to maintain it? By the end of the first episode, Fury was already fed up with the cameras, barring the crew from filming his son’s Christening. “It’s a religious ceremony.”
Otherwise, they were happy for the children to be filmed and interviewed. I did wonder about that. One of the younger boys said that when the kids were out with dad they did not like strangers butting in and asking for selfies. How did they feel about cameras in their home?
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Fury and his wife are not daft. They perhaps feel they are ahead of the fly-on-the-wall game here. But to quote that other Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
The 1970s Supermarket (Channel 5, Wednesday) explained a lot about the decade that style and sanity forgot. Gorging on Angel Delight, Fray Bentos steak and kidney pies (in a tin, natch) and crispy pancakes, the entire population was off its collective nut on additives.
This slickly produced hour, the first of three, assembled a range of experts plus Debbie McGee, who confessed that she had never eaten a Pot Noodle. Same here. I’d hate to think we were missing out.
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