KATHRYN FLETT'S TV Pick: Gym sitcom excitement

PEACOCK

BBC iPlayer

Rating:

I don’t think I’ve previously chosen a comedy as lead review and Peacock may seem a niche choice. However, this is an interesting time to explore TV comedy’s own proverbial ‘Interesting Times’, because let’s face it, 2024 is no laughing matter.

The Peacock in question (whom we first met in a 2022 three-parter) is Andy (Allan Mustafa), a personal trainer specialising in ‘body positivity’.

Andy’s struggling with what it means to be a modern man. In an environment of wannabe winners aiming for endless Personal Bests, he’s a bit of a loser.

Peacock is a ‘workplace comedy’. From Are You Being Served and Fawlty Towers, to The Office and The Thick Of It, these arguably provide the funniest ‘situations’ for our finest comedies – while the best of the rest invariably work from home.

For situational spin (never mind a spin class) gyms are perfect environments, heaving with the kind of people who take their glutes too seriously.

Peacock stars Allan Mustafa (pictured) as Andy, a personal trainer specialising in ‘body positivity’

Indeed, personal trainer-cum-gymfluencer, Kara (Saffron Hocking), gives Andy a tour of Sportif Leisure’s upscale ‘flagship’ site, and reels off a list of fitness-related nonsense jargon (‘fully immersive spin studio’, ‘Zen Pilates and meditation’, ‘KPI’) which, for this critic welded to the sofa, means the comedy ‘situation’ box is already ticked.

However, in testing times for TV comedy writers, you either have to push pretty far (a la Ricky Gervais’s After Life; easy to pull off when you have the pulling-power of Ricky Gervais) or rein it in a bit.

Millennials’ taste in ‘funny’ can be hard to gauge, while belly-laughs and wokery in the same episode are uneasy bedfellows. (And in 2024 is ‘bedfellows’ even A Thing? Bedmates, maybe? BedFellowTravellers even more appropriately vague.)

Fortunately, Peacock swerves most of the trials-and-tribulations of contemporary comedy by simply being very silly instead – always in fashion, in my opinion.

It’s written and created by Steve Stamp and Ben Murray, so there’s plenty of quality comedy provenance; they’re both members of the team who gave us the silly-funny ‘mockumentary’ series, People Just Do Nothing (big in many households containing teenagers, including mine).

Indeed, when he’s not Andy Peacock, the ever-excellent Mustafa is the equally inadequate MC Grindah of the pirate radio posse, Kurupt FM.

Kathryn Flett awarded comedy Peacock four stars

Peacock has a great supporting cast including Pippa Haywood (Green Wing) and Lucien Laviscount as Andy’s nemesis Jay – a long way from his role as Emily In Paris’s beau.

Peacock is a cleverly observed sitcom whose protagonist’s likeability far exceeds that of David Brent or Alan Partridge, never mind Basil Fawlty. Which may in fact be why the show falls just short of ‘brilliant’.

Frankly, however, ‘very funny’ is something for which I’ll happily settle. Because in June 2024, you really can ‘smell the tension with a knife’, right?

A classy remake with Jake

PRESUMED INNOCENT

Apple TV+

Rating:

I stayed up late finishing Scott Turow’s debut page-turner, Presumed Innocent, just before interviewing him back in 1997. Chicagoan Turow was charming in a high-powered Harvard Law School-educated attorney turned global bestselling author way; I can’t believe it was nearly 30 years ago!

That book-buster was adapted into a 1990 blockbuster movie with Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, the lawyer charged with murdering a female colleague with whom he’d had an affair.

Jake Gyllenhaal (centre) stars as Rusty in the remake of Presumed Innocent, based Scott Turow’s debut book of the same name

Presumably, estimable screenwriter David E Kelley (aka Mr Michelle Pfeiffer) figures that a new generation of viewers will never have heard of the book, or movie, much less know the ending’s spectacular twist.

However, although the film was 127 minutes long, this eight-parter clocks in at 360, adding several new layers that could be considered to lead an audience-cum-jury.

Nonetheless, with Jake Gyllenhaal, in his first TV role, as Rusty, his real-life brother-in-law Peter Sarsgaard as prosecutor Tommy Molto, veteran character actor Bill Camp as their boss, Ray Horgan, and Camp’s real-life wife (fabulous Elizabeth Marvel of Homeland) as Horgan’s wife Lorraine, among the plot-thrills and blood-spills this fresh version is also a classy family affair.

LL-B’s in his element!

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (pictured) presents Outrageous Homes on Channel 4

Fruity voiceovers? Bridgerton-esque wardrobes? One eyebrow raised so high it might challenge (Traitors US host) Alan Cumming’s brow to a duel? Yup, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is back.

In Outrageous Homes (Ch4), he’s practically an LL-B parody, visiting folk whose interiors match – or possibly clash – with their own idiosyncrasies. It’s like a quirky Through The Keyhole with an excess of pattern and punning.

Super Surgeons: A Chance At Life (Ch4) follows patients and medics through their cancer procedures at the Royal Marsden. And while I don’t gravitate towards watching close-up surgery this was both touching and revealing.

Preparing to operate on 18-year-old Anthea’s sarcoma, Professor Andy Hayes summed-up his dilemma: ‘Operating on young people is a little bit emotional… but there’s no place for emotion during an operation.’