Curb Your Enthusiasm

Season 10 M-Net (*101) 22:30 Comedy (See sidebar) Where we left off: Larry’s religious-themed play upset a lot of people, including an Iranian immigrant who chased him down the road with a paintball gun. Episode 1 Larry is banned from his local coffee shop after complaining about everything, and later a waitress accuses him of sexual harassment.

Season 10 M-Net (*101) 22:30 Comedy

Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-now) has a very specific type of comedy. You love it, or you hate it. But what you can’t ignore is that it never shies away from what’s relevant in society. Larry David, who plays a fictional version of himself, says that “it’s important in this modern world to focus on situations we all go through or are somehow introduced to.” And season 10 might be the most socially relevant yet as it starts with the topic of sexual harassment.

Larry (the character) accidentally nudges a waitress’s chest while trying to take a snack from her tray. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s being sued for sexually inappropriate behaviour, which is no laughing matter. Larry the actor learnt that in 2017 when he made off- colour jokes about the topic. “I was quickly shown my error. I was foolish for what I said. It can be argued that it is a satirist’s job to broach difficult subjects and shed light, but I went too far,” says the 72-year- old.

He has been careful with the storyline though, adding that the law team at network HBO “went through this with a fine-tooth comb. We had to do it right, there was no margin for error,” says Larry. “If we were going to feature something this socially important, we had to do it properly and I think that we’ve got it right.” While the episode didn’t sit well with critics, who called it “a poor attempt”, Larry says that he’s happy with how it played out “because in the past, we would have joked about touching a waitress’s breast accidentally while grabbing something from her tray. That is not what is right – ever!”