This sex comedy is much more than mere titillation
It will be a shame if (BBC One) is seen only as a notorious cause of ruffled feathers and eyes out on stalks. The opening scenes, it’s true, displayed a sophomoric eagerness to provoke. When not one but two middle-aged characters were caught taking advantage of themselves, you could be forgiven for thinking this was a script bent on pleasuring itself.
But no, this is a bracingly frank sex comedy which dares to confront the lean marital years when the pilot light has gone out in the bedroom and even the raunchiest role play won’t stoke the boiler. The troubled couple are Joy and Alan (Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh) who, having both newly enjoyed the thrill of adultery, decided to embark on a therapeutic course of further extramarital sex.
Collette is a joy as Joy. Her face is an elastic masquerade of gulps and gawps. When her doctor told her not to have athletic sex after her bike accident, her features struggled not to announce that there was zero chance of that. Mackintosh, who has played a lot of weaselly beta-husbands, knew exactly how to embody the moral hypocrite who thinks some betrayals are worse than others.
The script is by Nick Payne, another playwright sent to shake things up in TV drama (see also Mike Bartlett’s Doctor Foster). There were flashbacks, dream sequences and pin-sharp school banter about Jonathan Franzen, body fluids and female masturbation.
As a comedy of awkwardness it doesn’t let up much. But it’s raw too. Joy is a psychotherapist whose profession Payne has taken the trouble to portray respectfully. In one exquisitely painful scene, Andy Nyman beautifully played a man so stumped by the breakdown of his relationship that he could barely finish a sentence. At the other end of the sofa his glowering partner refused to even start one.
As for Joy’s much trumpeted handiwork, it rang emotionally true, and that is surely the best kind of screen sex. Her line is that we’re bad at talking about these things in this country. Wanderlust is likely to trigger a lot of conversations. As for the solution adopted by Joy and Alan, don’t necessarily try it at home. Jasper Rees
Remember the summer of 2014? Germany won the World Cup, Spain appointed a new King and the British public exploded over treachery in the Bake Off tent. The infamous scandal concerned the bearded Iain Watters, who dumped his melted baked Alaska in the bin claiming sabotage by rival contestant “Dirty Diana” Beard.
His #bingate strop made front-page news and earned Watters a slot on Newsnight. Quite the furore over a bit of cake.
Well, there was similar scandal afoot in the second episode of this year’s The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4) when French girl Manon turned the air blue during a stressful Showstopper challenge, causing producers to deploy the bleep censor. Swearing on the Bake Off? Pardon your French, Manon, but we’ll have none of that on such a tranquil and wholesome family show. Hosts Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding were quick to scorn her, but it’s shock moments such as these that truly capture what Bake Off is all about, allowing the viewer to delight in the schadenfreude of a collapsed sponge or melted icing.
There was further drama on Cake Week, which unfortunately fell on one of the hottest days of the year. “Nobody should be dealing with chocolate on a day like today,” announced Leith with a smirk as the bakers were set a two-tier chocolate collar cake showstopper. The searing summer heat saw tempers frazzle and tears flow. Yorkshire Karen was more upset than a wet weekend over her raw Monet cake (another fiendish challenge by Leith, who’s becoming more forthright by the day, involving spinach purée and some delicate knife skills), Terry’s Eiffel Tower looked more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and DJ Luke threw in the tea towel (and was sent packing) after serving up cake “as tough as old boots”.
Fielding tried his best to keep spirits high by dressing up as Marie Antoinette, but it was Hollywood, giving out handshakes like an overeager salesman, that brought order back to the tent. After running such a hellish gauntlet, the contestants deserved to have their cake and eat it. Rachel Ward