When I saw Dylan Moran at the Apollo in London recently it was clear that despite rarely appearing on TV these days he still had a massive devoted following. Thanks, I'm guessing, to the enduring popularity of his uber-grumpy character Bernard Black in Black Books. So it's good to see Moran back on the box in a brand new comedy, Stuck.
Moran plays Dan, a middle aged advertising executive who gets the boot from his agency after coming up with an idea for a chicken that has neck tattoos. He's clearly too much of a maverick for the mainstream. Morgana Robinson plays his wife Carla. They seem to love each other, but they also seem to be in a bit of a mid-marriage crisis, unable to move on, hence the title.
Needless to say with Moran at the creative helm the writing is excllent. The episodes are only 15 minutes long but a lot happens in them. In the first instalment, for example, we also meet supporting characters including Dan's doctor, Pete Cosmos, played by familiar face Neil Maskell (brilliant actor from Peaky Blinders, Bull, Utopia), who is an ace card player - Dan wants him to gamble with his redundancy paackage to earn some more cash so that he and Carla can escape from their tiny flat.
Juliet Cowan and Clemens Schick play new agey friends Joy and Kurt who are into spirituality and stuff like that and of course Dan doesn't really like them that much. But they do have a shack in the woods and Joy offers Carla the keys which gives her the opportunity of having a much-needed break.
Stuck is hardly the first comedy to deal with a mid-life crisis, but even after a few minutes you sense that this is going to be different. Moran's recent stand-up shows that I've seen have had a lack of discipline but the tight format here seems to give him more focus. You really want to know how things are going to pan out.
It also helps that Moran and Robinson have a great onscreen chemistry. The relationship is pretty convincing and believable, even though it starts with Carla filling out a personality test in bed. In a magazine. With a biro. Surely in real life she'd have been doing it on her laptop/ipad/iphone.
Moran is very watchable too, a bit of a scruffy manchild who looks ancient and young, often at the same time. Stuck is both relatable and also slightly weird at times, but when you finish one episode you'll want to go straight on to the next one. I've got to be honest though, like his ad company boss I wasn't sure why the chicken had neck tattoos either.
Stuck, Now rescheduled to Mondays from Sept 26, 10pm, BBC Two.
Picture: BBC/Hat Trick ‘STUCK’ Ltd/Chris Barr
