That tricky period between graduating from university and settling down into a relationship and a career has been well-covered in recent years, but Limbo has a twist. The three people here are all scraping by as tutors while they dream of better things.
Well, that’s the different bit, but basically this is a familiar comedy about a group of twentysomethings getting their acts together with different degrees of failure. Alistair Roberts plays slightly nerdy Francis who is desperate for a shag. Alice (Ellie White) is the boarding school waster who teaches kids maths by getting them to do her tax returns for her. And Bekka Bowling plays pink-haired piss artist Neck who finds herself being paid to play Call of Duty with divorced dad Paul (Sanjeev Bhaskar).
So really it’s a fairly conventional format homing in on millennials trying to make their way in the big world. What makes it good - as well as the quality of the cast - is the quality of the script. Writers Joe Parham and Lucien Young previously wrote for (but didn't create) Siblings, which left me a bit cold, but there is an anarchic warmth to the relatable situation the threesome find themselves in here. The script could have done with a bit of tightening up in places though. There are two very similar jokes about conquering loneliness - gloomy coffee bar manager Adam Riches says he bought a reptile for company, a few minutes later Paul is saying he called a plumber for company.
The climax, if that’s the right word, sees Alice having a party to impress her posh friends at which chaos inevitably ensues. Sanjeev Bhaskar goes on a bad trip and sees rabbits everywhere, while Francis comes within a whisker of sex only to dig himself into a deeper hole.
Limbo is very much what one would have expected of the pre-online BBC3. It’s got young people, dyed hair and drug references. But it is also riotously good - better than Drifters and Crashing and at least two of the grown-up pilots that went out on BBC2 as part of the Landmark Sitcom Season.
Watch/Download Limbo here.
