The award-winning The Marvelous Mrs Maisel returns to Amazon Prime Video
AMAZON PRIME, FROM WEDNESDAY 5 DECEMBER
Winner of Best Comedy and Best Lead Actress In A Comedy series at this year’s Emmy awards, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is the best thing to arrive on Amazon Prime Video since the heyday of its transgender comedy-drama series Transparent. It’s a comedy saga told in hour-long episodes, created byamy Shermanpalladino of Gilmore Girls fame, tracing the steady rise of fictional female stand-up comedian Miriam “Midge” Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), whose sudden decision to try her hand at live performance coincides with the collapse of her marriage to Joel (Michael Zegen). The first season beautifully established the late ’50s/early ’60s New York setting, and the world of smoky, boozy comedy clubs where real-life comedians like Lenny Bruce and Joan Rivers got their big breaks. It climaxed with Midge doing a routine at the Gaslight Café club, which made fun of her husband, who, unbeknownst to her, was in the audience. But it was also the moment when she declared herself to be a professional stand-up called Mrs Maisel. Season two picks up with Midge combining her day job in the call centre of a department store with her comedy gigs, while her manager Susie (Alex Borstein) gets in trouble with some hilariously useless gangsters, and her mother (Marin Hinkle) suddenly leaves her professor dad (Tony Shalhoub) for a freewheeling new life in Paris. It’s brilliantly witty and deeply engaging every step of the way, like an extended Woody Allen film from his golden period in the ’70s.