Brief serialisation (via Nick Hornby, no less) of a book (by Nina Stibbe) based on real-life recollections of a Leicester-born nanny in 1980s London. Some of this stuff is so unlikely-looking (also with moments of healthcare-related seriousness) that it simply has to be true, and true it somewhat is.
So it's a little bit odd/annoying maybe that characters existing in the real world - Nina herself, her beau (real-life future husband) Nunney and even widow of Britain's greatest composer Ursula Vaughan-Williams retain their names in the series, while the character Helena Bonham-Carter plays - "George" - goes by a different name out here in the world, as does neighbour and poet "Malcolm" - a good portrayal by the reliable Jason Watkins - who would actually be (non-Scottish) playwright Alan Bennett. Also annoying-ish is the gap in the fact that "George's" husband (the father of her two precocious kids) is absent, and hardly referred to - yet in real life that was famed film director Stephen Frears, no less!
BTW, if you know the film "The Lady in the Van" with Maggie Smith, you'll be noting that that film also features Bennett and Ursula Vaughan-Williams, hence you'll deduce that this Gloucester Crescent area of London is indeed the same in the two films and plays and stories...
Quite a specific place.
Anyway, it's 1982 and there are occasional references to that culturally- and politically-massive time that many of us remember keenly. The series gives us a "lite" version on that, but just enough to p(rov)oke nostalgia. In that regard, it is noticeable that the script regularly resorts to words and forms of language that were NOT used in 1982 but are used now. It doesn't matter that much, but grates a bit. Had the makers wanted advice on this, they could have asked me, and I would have been happy to oblige ... even free of charge.
While Bonham-Carter's "George" remains an enigmatic character, she is there just enough to be a sophisticated southern foil for Nina's character, and quite a bit of effective humour is mined on this north-south, big city/small city basis. Nina's eccentricities only occasionally become wearing, and it has to be said that Faye Marsay is an intriguing hit of this show, not least because of her very unusual form of attractiveness, which is tangible and most interesting. The 2 kids also get great lines (though perhaps a bit too knowingly adult at times) and make the best of them; while Malcolm also does well. Indeed his "fell into Ursula Vaughan-Williams's skip" opener is one to remember for a whole lifetime, as those who know husband Ralph's great music will just revel in the joy of the amazingly contrasting mental images.
As one might expect from Hornby, the words are wacky, but also remarkably erudite, and it's (very) fast-paced and pretty pertinent; and - if you're like me - you'll find more and more laughs erupting as each episode passes. Regrettably that's just 28 minutes a time, but here at least "less could well be more".
Given that the copntemporary suburban adventures of Sami the Syrian in Channel 4's "Home" also made me laugh a lot, I am amazed to have come across another funny-witty-clever British comedy series so soon. So perhaps we can at last begin to forget the image of British TV sitcom as mostly epitomised by a ludicrously awful mix of the crude, the shallow and the lame?
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