Show + Tell with Paul Flynn
Wannabe trawls the lives of forgotten pop stars for a comedy hit, while Idris gives drama the Elba
IN THE HIGHLY watchable 2013 show The Big Reunion, pop stars who mattered fleetingly at the turn of the millennium recounted their retrospective tales, warts and all. The eating disorders, intra-band scraps, petty jealousies and deep psychological fractures behind the thinnest end of the fame wedge were laid bare, exposing the wonky wizard behind the curtain of Scluboz.
Wannabe is a fictionalised take on the same tale. When Dane Bowers shows up (still got it, Another Level fans) at a cloudy suburban barbecue, it’s touched by that queasy interface between nostalgia, irony and pathos The Big Reunion mined so perfectly. Dealt a fair hand, this material can be as prickly and moving as a Mike Leigh film.
Wannabe is the work of Lily Brazier, a frequent scene-stealer in the exceptional
People Just Do Nothing, as MC Grindah’s luckless fiancée Miche. In Wannabe she plays Maxine Hancock, former member of girl band Variety, still surrounded by boxes of cheap merch, watching vintage CD:UK, haunted by the modern ghosts of Youtube.
She’s married to balding ex-boybander Neil, now writing jingles, attempting not to get stoned in their commuter-belt shed. They have two kids, Phoenix and Enrique, who Maxine routinely ignores in favour of managing her young girl band charges, Sweet Gyal. She’s convinced the old rules of pop that once sealed her neighbourly popularity still apply. The comedy note central to this strong set-up is a sad, true one. They don’t.
Martine Mccutcheon, lesser members of B*witched and anyone who’s ever been offered a yogurt commercial or tabloid showbiz editor’s mobile number will almost certainly watch this through the gritted teeth someone else once paid to whiten.
Wannabe might be light on belly laughs, but Brazier is perfect at the strangely upbeat gloom ingrained in stars whose fame always rested on the flimsy premises of a marketing spreadsheet. Let’s call it The Steps Factor. Her astonishing physical likeness to Adele is capitalised on in the closing frames of the first episode, where she invents a seemingly meaningless new pop genre, convinced that it will save the world, her bank balance, her dignity, her marriage and the open wound of her need for public approval. She calls it ‘Mumpop’. The redemptive note is that she may well be right. File under highly promising. Begins Weds, BBC Three