Amy Huberman could learn a lot from Sharon Horgan’s masterpiece
Finding Joy RTÉ One, Wednesday Women on the Verge RTÉ2, Thursday Butterfly UTV, Sunday Informer BBC1, Tuesday
The New Me? So, where should I start? No, not me, that’s my business, thank you very much! I’m talking about thirty-something flibbertyg ibbets Joy and Laura who are only making their search for their ‘New Me’ our business. Our heroines have inevitably been unlucky in love and are trying to reinvent themselves as career women in a media world overpopulated by bloggers and social influencers. And yes, they’re still hoping for The One. Sound like Bridget Jones anyone? Only while Renée Zellweger enchanted us from the off and had us laughing and sympathising with her through her many mishaps, Joy leaves us, well, irritated.
Joy (Amy Huberman) introduced herself in the opening episode of Finding Joy, or more accurately her annoyingly loose-bowelled dog Aidan, who shares his name with her ex, did.
Aidan, the dog that is, leads us in this second episode on a walk-through of his beloved owner’s journey, and isn’t it always a journey?
She is, of course, trying to establish herself as a worthy successor to super vlogger Flora and must pitch herself into a series of daft stunts such as cage-fighting.
Of course her ex’s current squeeze bowls up – as her adversary. And there is an even more annoying new flatmate who challenges her tidiness obsession. Worst of all, even Joy’s best friend, a heavily-pregnant mothering Trish, looks as if she has had enough of her. And it’s no surprise when she tells her it’s okay to have other friends. The poor soul looks like she would gladly run for it were she not so weighed down.
It’s no crime to channel the best but maybe Bridget’s pants are just too big for our Joy to fill.
Finding Joy is Huberman’s new vehicle to present her own ‘New Me’ as a sitcom writer and comic actress, much in the mode of, say, Sharon Horgan.
I dare say Amy has followed what Sharon’s been doing but she could do worse than digging out those box sets again and bingeing out on
Pulling, Catastrophe and Sharon’s latest masterpiece Women On The Verge.
Sharon is happy to play second fiddle to Laura (Kerry Condon) as her therapist Dr Fitzgerald (she’d been trailed at the end of the opening episode). The excitable Laura is visiting Dr Fitzgerald to sort her head out from her affair with her editor Kieran (Emmett J Scanlan), her drinking and turning up late for her godson’s Christening and being overlooked for the gig.
Laura, for whom the word loquacious may have been invented, and indeed lush, gives a scattergun volley of her woes which veers into a precis on the shade of the nail polish on the good doctor’s toes.
At the end of which it seems that all she needed was a good hug.
It is indeed this attention to detail
which marks out Sharon Horgan, and alas not Amy Huberman, as a comic writing genius.
Women On The Verge also follows the lives of photojournalist Katie (Nina Sosanya) who is wrestling with the dilemma of whether to have another baby and pharmacist Alison (Eileen Walsh) who has taken her dipstick boyfriend back.
But it is Laura who steals the show. I can’t wait to see what she gets up to next.
That Laura took up with Emmet J Scanlan’s character is probably no surprise to any red-blooded female across the country.
In fact it just so happens that in another country, in another show, another Amy Huberman character is doing the same.
Gemma is the ‘other woman’ that Stephen has walked out on his wife Vicky (Anna Friel) for, although there are other factors too.
Such as Max (Callum BoothFord), their 11-year-old son who has been exploring his feminine side by playing dress up.
And while Stephen and Max’s
grandparents hope this is just a phase, it becomes clear that Max has a New Me waiting to burst out... Maxine.
Butterfly is challenging, vital television on a socially-important issue. It avoids glib political correctness and deals with Max’s cri
de coeur with the right degree of empathy for all the family.
And when Max’s sister Lily (Millie Gibson) confronts school bullies on a bridge by denying that he is her brother to later tell him that’s because she sees him as her sister, it is truly heart-rending
The family dynamic is also at the centre of Informer, which is anticipated to be the BBC’s water-cooler successor to Bodyguard.
Raza Shar (Nabhaan Rizwan) is a Pakistani man-about-London town, trapped into turning informer by DS Gabe Waters (Paddy Considine) when he is caught dealing Class A drugs on a night out.
The police hold the fact that dad Hanif’s (Paul Tylak) wife Sadia (Sunetra Sarker) is an illegal immigrant, who took on a fake identity.
A New Me is always a challenge.