This article was originally published in The Courier on 15 April 2017.
PETER KAY’S CAR SHARE:
Tuesday,
BBC One
BUCKET: Thursday, BBC Four
Like
a great phoenix night rising from the ashes of obsolescence, the artistic
rebirth of Peter Kay has been something to behold.
Despite
his continued draw as a stand-up, his reputation as a great observational
character comedian had become tarnished – seemingly forever – by years of
cynically repackaged DVDs, slapdash memoirs, self-serving chat show appearances
and turkeys such as Max & Paddy’s
Road to Nowhere and that mirthless X
Factor parody.
Even
previously loyal fans had begun to regard him as a lazy sell-out.
But
then – as Adam Curtis would say – something happened that nobody expected. In
2015, Kay returned with two delightful hit comedies.
In
Danny Baker’s Cradle to Grave, he
focused solely on acting to marvellous effect. Even more impressively, the
BAFTA-winning PETER KAY’S CAR SHARE
proved that Kay could still co-create a warm, rich, laugh-out-loud sitcom.
Any
concerns that he couldn’t sustain this comeback were cheerfully vanquished by Car Share’s return. It’s just as
charming and funny as before.
Picking
up where series one left off, it gently toyed with the burgeoning romance
between bumptious supermarket manager John (Kay) and his sweetly daft, naïve
employee Kayleigh (Sian Gibson, who co-writes with Kay and Paul Coleman).
Though
set almost entirely within the confines of John’s car, the series occasionally
finds new wrinkles in its premise. So, John and Keyleigh spent most of episode
one chatting via phone on their respective journeys to work. These subtle
difference are seismic in Car Share’s
little world.
Kayleigh’s
new digs might’ve scuppered their old routine, but they clearly can’t live
without their daily conversations.
John
was reticent to admit that his heart was lifted by Kayleigh’s gift of a Now 48 CD – only Kay could derive
cockle-warming mileage from Pure and
Simple by Hear’Say – but that didn’t dent their natural chemistry. It was
like being reunited with two old friends.
And
that’s the modest magic of Car Share,
it’s a pure and simple comedy about two likeable characters shooting the breeze.
Even
the broader sitcom twist of John’s altercation with a belligerent cyclist going
viral on YouTube didn’t feel out of place, as it supported the show’s basic
humanity: in its unfussy way, it showed how innocent people can become internet
villains/laughing stocks by being subjected to duplicitous editing.
If
Kay and Gibson make it look easy, new sitcom BUCKET proves just how hard it is to get laughs from two people
talking almost uninterrupted.
Writer
Frog Stone co-stars as Fran, the reserved, virginal daughter of Mim, a
septuagenarian free-spirited hippie played by Miriam Margolyes, an actress upon
whom the euphemistic terms “irrepressible” and “redoubtable” are permanently
affixed like warning signs.
Their
dysfunctional relationship is driven by one joke, hammered into the ground: Mim
won’t stop talking frankly about sex, much to Fran’s understandable
exasperation.
Old
women saying “hilariously” inappropriate things is one of the laziest comedy
clichés, but I suppose we should be grateful that she didn’t get high or do a
rap. Not yet anyway.
Another
insurmountable problem: their nasty bickering is depressing, and no amount of
laboured, unconvincing, last-minute pathos can atone for that.
I’m
all for black comedy, but Bucket reminded
me of how much Steptoe and Son made
us care about those characters, even when they were behaving despicably to each
other.
We’re
supposed to find Mim charmingly eccentric, but she just comes across as an
unbearable nuisance. Bucket is inept,
a clumsy stab at rude, broad comedy with delusions of depth.
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