TV Review - Crashing | via Loaded Magazine

CRASHING
CHANNEL 4, JANUARY 11
8/10

Familiar – if at all – as Charlotte Rampling’s junior legal helper in the second series of Broadchurch, Phoebe Waller-Bridge has also quietly established herself as an impassioned stand-up.

It’s led to her being rewarded with a housesharing sitcom on Channel 4. The elevator pitch would be “What the Fresh Meat generation do when they graduate”, to which the answer is “Get jobs where they can only afford to live as property sitters in a disused hospital.” Or, it’s the anti-Friends.

That’s a pretty bleak premise for a sitcom, and there were some great lines about how this is the first generation whose housing choices are non-existent. French art teacher Melodie rattles off a list off pleasures banned to residents – “No pets, no smoking, no sex” and so on – before deadpanning: “It’s a blast.”

But Crashing wraps its despair in fine broad strokes relationship comedy. Waller-Bridge plays Lulu, a lifelong pal of hospital resident Anthony, whose friendship isn’t as Platonic as either of them pretends. Anthony – played by Damien Molony from C5’s under-rated cop drama Suspects – is engaged to not-as-dippy-as-she-seems Kate, who just happens to look a lot like Lulu.

Some characters are thus far too stereotypical, like randy estate agent Sam, but there’s more than enough promise in the likes of scene-stealing mousy housemate Fred (Amit Shah) to suggest that Waller-Bridge could earn those plaudits as “The British Amy Schumer.” 

Anyone dismayed at the idea that Fresh Meat is coming to an end would be advised to dive in.