Alma’s Not Normal, streaming on CBC Gem, is a breakout hit in Britain.Matt Squire/Courtesy of CBC Gem
Since we seem to live in a turbulent flux of bad news and sinister acts, you might seek distractions. Well, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s say you want something slightly exotic but not much of a strain, bonkers-funny but with serious comedic intent. For that, we can turn to the latest hit thing from Britain.
Alma’s Not Normal (streams CBC Gem) is a breakout hit in Britain. The pilot episode won a BAFTA award, before a full season had been made. And that season of six episodes drew rave reviews. You can see why – the series is unusually raw, vehemently rude but packed with a small group of characters whose backstories are the sort of material that’s usually found in case-studies of trauma and child neglect. Yet it can be blisteringly funny.
Alma (Sophie Willan, also the creator) introduces herself at the start. Seen riding around Bolton while stopping often for a smoke, she’s actually in need of a job. So, she explains why. She’s just broken up with her long-time boyfriend and has little in the way of education or work experience. Her mom was a punk drug-addict who neglected to send her to school. She explains, “When I did go to school, I was eventually excluded for arriving drunk in a bikini.” Her mom Lin (Siobhan Finneran) is now a toothless recovering junkie in a psychiatric hospital, and attached to a schizophrenic boyfriend, Jim (Nicholas Asbury, who is barely required to do more than mumble.) Her one anchor is her grandma Joan (Lorraine Ashbourne), a woman devoted to leopard-skin prints, vodka and cigarettes.
Catch up on the best streaming TV of 2021 with our holiday guide
What you’ve got is a cast of grotesques. The humour arises abruptly and constantly, mind you. It’s something to savour if you’re even vaguely familiar with the history of British humour. For instance, Alma explains to Grandma that she wants to be an actor. She dreams of it. “Dreaming’s not to put Spam on the table, is it?”, Grandma exclaims. She’s got a thing for fried Spam. Wakes up thinking about it, she says. Alma’s friend Leanne (Jayde Adams, who has the most astonishing singing voice), a robust force of nature, tries to nudge Alma into getting a real job. Instead, Alma tries a family reunion and then seeks work at an escort service.
The show is a mind-boggling mash-up of rude comedy and sociological concerns about drug abuse, mental health and income inequality. It takes some nerve to weave comedy out of Alma’s journey from disastrous childhood to foster care to unreliable boyfriend to working in the sex trade. Yet, as it bobs and weaves its way through a minefield of woes, it mostly maintains optimism and wit. Much of the dialogue can’t be printed in the paper, some of the set-pieces are a tad predicable (Alma’s outing behind the counter at a sandwich shop is foreseeable anarchy), and still it has heart and bizarre energy. A review by Michael Hogan in The Telegraph includes one astute comment: “This is Fleabag without the privilege, let alone the hot priests.” True, and little wonder this is one hot show over there.
Alma's Not Normal is a mind-boggling mash-up of rude comedy and sociological concerns about drug abuse, mental health, and income inequality.Courtesy of CBC Gem
If you want a very different style of British humour and warmth, try Starstruck (steams Crave), a wry rom-com series that’s part screwball comedy and part deliberate inversion of the expected.
Rose Matafeo stars as Jessie, a New Zealand woman living in London who doesn’t have a lot of fun in her life, but has a funny perspective. On New Year’s Eve, she hooks up with a chap (Nikesh Patel) who is actually a movie star, but she’s oblivious to that. The on/off relationship with him is delightfully demented.
Also airing/streaming this weekend, Once Upon a Time … Happily Never After (streams Netflix) is a moonstruck mélange of musical, comedy and haywire romance. In the past, a prince (Sebastian Yatra) loves a maiden (Monica Maranillo), but things come between them. He engages a fella to cast a spell on her. It goes awry, and in the town where it all happens, nobody can fall in love. Unless the two lovers are reincarnated. Or something. Colourful and arch, in Spanish with English subtitles.
Finally, in keeping with the theme, you can see the 75th British Academy Film Awards (Sunday, 3 p.m. on BritBox) live this year. Hosted by Rebel Wilson, it takes place at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Plan your screen time with the weekly What to Watch newsletter. Sign up today.