Life’s a laughing matter in this fast and funny romp
‘Some people say that women aren’t funny.” This line of dialogue from series two of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is as depressing as it is revealing. The Amazon Prime comedy drama set in 1959, and created by Amy Sherman-palladino, is focused on a privileged New York woman who secretly becomes a stand-up comic in an industry fuelled by machismo. But you only have to read interviews with contemporary comedy stars such as Katherine Ryan to discover that not much has changed in 60 years.
Thankfully, that’s the only depressing thing about The Marvelous Mrs Maisel – it’s a fast, funny, romp of a show with a huge heart. The first series was a major hit, winning multiple Emmys, Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice awards – and that’s largely thanks to Rachel Brosnahan, who plays titular character Miriam “Midge” Maisel with piles of charm.
Midge might look like your archetypal Fifties housewife (with a wardrobe to rival Mad Men’s Betty Draper) but she has a razor-sharp wit, which is why, when she discovers her sweet but pathetic husband Joel (Michael Zegen), a failed funnyman himself, is sleeping with his secretary, she turns to stand-up comedy.
Season two begins with Joel uncovering his estranged wife’s double life. By day she’s a department store telephonist, but by night she’s lighting up the comedy scene and catching the attention of big names such as Lenny Bruce. As Midge and Joel attempt to salvage a friendship from their broken marriage, there are some sad, tender moments, leaving us – and indeed them – unsure as to whether they should reconcile; he’s so weak and she’s so awesome, but there’s a lot of love between them.
One relationship in the show that I’m rooting for is the friendship between Midge and her manager Susie Myerson, superbly played by Alex Borstein. It’s strange, quirky characters such as Susie that Sherman-palladino draws so well. The smart, speedy dialogue between the two women, particularly when they’re face-to-face in their favourite diner booth is particularly well-caught.
With Midge’s stand-up sideline gathering pace (as well as a flirtation with a handsome doctor), things ought to be looking up. But since comedy is a form of counselling for Midge, who takes comfort from opening her heart to smoky rooms full of strangers, we wouldn’t want things to go too smoothly. If Mrs Maisel’s life gets too marvellous, then surely the gags will dry up. Isabel Mohan
Earlier this year Michael Palin went on tour in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. What he found was neither a democracy nor a republic. Would we be made any the wiser by North Korea: Life Inside the Secret State (Channel 4)? The title was a forgivable misnomer because the Dispatches team didn’t once set foot on North Korean soil.
Instead, for this portrait of life under Kim Jong-un, it relied on defectors based in Seoul communicating by mobile with contacts over the border. These contraband conversations were hasty, and parsimonious with detail. And because they couldn’t be filmed, the contacts were illustrated by effective animations.
In a timeline that moved from nuclear testing to the North Korea-us summit in Singapore, little changed on the ground: people are ignorant of the internet and fed on surreal propaganda. But the information void cut both ways. With so little news about North Korea to go on, those in the south succumbed to fantasy to fill in the blanks. Thus journalist Kang Mi-jin imagined her army contact to be “very handsome… incredibly decisive and actually very manly”. Mrs Lee supposed the sister she hadn’t seen for 13 years would be desperate to join her in the south, only to be sharply rebuked.
This was the emotional heart of this pessimistic documentary, and the starkest illustration of the psychic distress caused by the division of families and states. Mrs Lee’s face was pixelated but her tears flowed copiously. The only face shown in her flat belonged to her blissfully ignorant baby son. Will he live to see reunification? The North Korean populace, rumoured to hope for it, have not been told that this could only happen if the regime is toppled.
Commander Choi, in charge of something called the North Korean People’s Liberation Front, hoped to bring that outcome about. When two of his contacts were imprisoned for communicating with him, he could only carry on pumping iron while chuckling at his poster of Kim Jong-un seated on the toilet. Jasper Rees
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel North Korea: Life inside the Secret State