April showers bring brilliant May ‘Flowers’
The fun begins when Maurice Flowers, the author of a children’s book series, carries a rope and a chair out into the yard, tosses the rope over a tree limb and tries to end it all.
It doesn’t work, of course, which is good news not only for his dysfunctional family but for the rest of us who will fall quickly and irrevocably in thrall with the comedy-drama called “Flowers,” whose six episodes are available Thursday on the fledgling subscription comedy site called Seeso.
Among the series’ most memorable bits: a blood-soaked clown, a young woman who gets hit by lightning while riding her bike, a young Japanese man who is told to hide a lasso and thinks he’s being told to hide Lassie and a would-be inventor whose creations include a self-contained cheese smoker that blows up in the middle of a party.
Do I need to tell you that the show is British? Probably not, but you should know that it’s the delicious concoction of a young writer-director named Will Sharpe, who also plays the Japanese illustrator named Shun in the series.
For much of the way, “Flowers” is giddy farce. Maurice ( Julian Barratt, “The Mighty Boosh”) and his wife, Deborah (Olivia Colman, “Broadchurch”), are still married but live apart. She resides in the family home, and Maurice is holed up in a tiny workshop with Shun where the two work on The Grubbs books.
Deborah isn’t happy with the arrangement but is unsure how to repair the rift in their marriage. Maurice cannot tell her about the failed suicide attempt, and the more taciturn and moody he becomes, the more Deborah is sure he’s having a late coming-out and in a relationship with Shun.
Their adult children, twins Donald (Daniel Rigby, “Eric and Ernie”) and Amy (Sophia Di Martino, “Friday Night Dinner”), are understandably somewhat bonkers. Donald is the serial inventor of harebrained creations, and Amy spends her time writing moody love songs about the girl next door, Abigail (Georgina Campbell, “After Hours”). Unbeknownst to his sister, Donald is also crushing on fetching Abigail.
Ah, but things are even more complicated in the lust department.
The aforementioned blood-soaked clown (Helen Cripps, “Black Pond”) is obsessed with Donald, who refers to her as “Fat Matilda.” Abigail’s father, George (a slimy Angus Wright, “Peep Show”), is hot for Deborah, as is Barry (Colin Hurley, “David Copperfield), the lonely widower whose face gets a fresh coat of melted cheese when Donald’s cheese smoker explodes.
Deborah’s sister Viv (the divine Anna Chancellor, “The Hour”) shows up for a visit, derides Deborah for apparently turning her husband gay and wastes no time bedding down with George for a night of rambunctious, and very noisy, sex.
The show is loosely rooted in traditional farce. Instead of similar suitcases, though, Sharpe gives us the hangman’s noose as the motivating gimmick.
When Maurice’s mother falls and later dies, he concocts a story that she was trying to hang herself, but that’s just to explain why his father’s noose was found near Nana (Leila Hoffman, “Bad Education”). His father, by the way, was a magician named Felix and the noose was part of his act, which may explain why Maurice is still among the living.
Now Maurice is haunted by his life — literally, as it turns out, because Nana’s ghost pops up at regular intervals to remind him of his deception.
So much happens in “Flowers” that it’s hard to believe it comprises only six half-hour episodes. More to the point, though, is that the show is so completely hilarious for a very long time. Sharpe’s writing is on point at every moment, with a wondrous attention to detail, such as having the adult Amy go off bike riding with Abigail for their first date — on a children’s bike with training wheels.
The cast is uniformly excellent. We’re rather used to seeing Colman doing dramatic parts, but she acquits herself brilliantly as Deborah Flowers, valiantly cheerful until it all becomes just too much for her. Barratt is every bit her dour equal.
As in many farces, one would think it should be comparatively easy for Maurice to simply fess up to his subterfuge when things go haywire, but Barratt convinces us his character is simply too burdened with depression and self-doubt to do that.
Seeso made its debut in January and offers comedy content such as “Saturday Night Live,” from its parent company, NBC Universal, and shows such as “The Cyanide & Happiness Show,” originally a web series whose second season was available to stream on Seeso.
“Flowers” is the site’s first original content, and if it is in any way a harbinger of other original fare to come, it bodes very well for the site’s future. Especially if it continues to attract talent like Sharpe.