Women On The Verge, W Channel
With BBC1’s ratings flop Press limping to its conclusion, last night may have seemed an odd time to launch another show set in a newspaper office.
Luckily, this dark comedy drama from the W Channel had three things going for it that Press didn’t. One, there was very little boring day-to-day newspaper stuff in it.
Two, it actually featured some likeable characters. And three, it was spit-your-tea-across-the-living-room
funny.
That last bit should not be a surprise. It was co-created by Sharon Horgan, who has sprinkled so much gold dust across our screens this past 10 years with the likes of Catastrophe, Divorce and Motherland she must be due a Hollywood film soon.
Horgan also appears in this show as a stylishly dressed psychiatrist but it’s very much a vehicle for three other actresses – Kerry Condon and Nina Sosanya, who play Dublin journalists Laura and Katie, and
Eileen Walsh, who plays their mate Alison. Almost all the female characters in this first episode were hilarious and inspirational, which seemed a fitting way to mark yesterday’s International Day Of The Girl. As for the blokes? Not such good news. Feckless, disloyal, deluded, humourless, vain and self-obsessed would be some of the kinder descriptions I could assign.
Male viewers could take this one of two ways. They could grumble about yet another attempt to undermine a gender that was already under attack like never before.
Or they could recognise one or five of the traits and say: “Yeah, fair enough.”