Steve Coogan has always had difficulty shaking off Alan Partridge. The Norfolk bore was there in his Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People, there in The Trip and there were even flashes of him in his serious role in Philomena. So with Happyish, about a middle-aged ad executive in crisis when a young team takes over the firm it is interesting to note that there is not a hint of Alan, even though the workplace side of the plot has an echo of the new broom in the Partridge movie Alpha Papa.
Coogan plays Thom Payne, a 44-year-old family man going through the usual mid-life issues. He reads his kids stories at bedtime, watches porn with his doting wife and has a lovely home. This being cable channel Showtime he swears a lot in his Manhattan-meets-Manchester accent – he’s a Brit settled in his adopted homeland.
So the plot is pretty straightforward. It’s what Coogan and writer Shalom Auslander do with it that makes it fun. Payne (the name is clearly a pun on various levels) is prone to quoting Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett and philosophising in his narration. He might have a well-paid marketing job, but when he sees the changes around him and the firm putting the emphasis on youth the existential angst gets the better of him: “It’s Lord of the Flies out there and everyone over 18 is Piggy.”
Happyish is hardly the first comedy to be literate, clever and adult but it does it very well. Even if it does risk lobbing everything into the mix. The first episode includes dream sequences and animations – Payne having lurid sex with a cartoon granny.
The main attraction is Coogan's turn as this sympathetic everyman character. When he has a rant about the rise of social media at an office meeting we are on his side. It’s a very good, understated lead performance in a role that Philip Seymour Hoffman was originally due to play before his death.
It might be a little too subtle and a little too bleak for Americans that like their comedy to end on an upbeat note, but it is no more bleak than, say, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and that has done pretty well. It certainly made me happy to watch it. Not just happyish, actually happy.
Happyish starts in the USA on April 26. It has not been picked up by UK television yet.
