Transgender comedian Jordan Gray has already made a splash on television, getting her penis out on the revived variety show Friday Night Live. Now Gray brings those comic chops to the world of sitcom, writing and starring in Transaction, a pretty broad vehicle set in a supermarket called Pellocks.
But never mind the Pellocks, this is all about Gray's character Liv, who lives with employee Tom (Thomas Gray). When the supermarket becomes embroiled in a LGBTQ+ transphobia protest they need some diversity urgently to get them out of a mess. Who you gonna call? Wisecracking Liv, who just happens to need a job to pay for her gender reassignment surgery. She wants a vagina even though she has a nagging worry that a bee might fly up there.
The first episode finds Liv being taken on after a late night interview by store manager Simon (Nick Frost) and scene-stealing employee Millie (Francesca Mills). But Liv has a few demands. All phallic produce must be rmeoved immediately. This is not just a new job, it's a knob-adjacent revolution...
Like Rosie Jones' new C4 comedy Pushers, Transaction might tick numerous woke boxes but the emphasis is strongly on silly humour, with the occasional hat tip to big issues like transgender use of women's toilets. Nick Frost's boss for example is a pretty straightforward cartoon hybrid of Gordon Brittas and David Brent. He wants to do the right thing but can't help digging a hole for himself. Curiously towards the end of episode one the right on rioters outside storm the building and it looks like there is going to be a homage to the zombia pub invasion in Shaun of the Dead until things play out differently.
While it's very much an ensemble piece – Kayla Meikle as deadpan grump Linda is good too – Jordan Gray (only very slightly channelling Russell Brand here, and mainly in the tight trousers department) is clearly the star, at the end of the opener making a defiant speech which could be Gray speaking for herslef as much as speaking as Liv. Of course, the serious sermonising ends in a gag.
It may well turn out that this ITV sitcom becomes another pawn in the culture wars, with the press taking sides depending on where they stand on issues (The Telegraph, for example, called it "a crude, one-note trans comedy"_. But you definitely don't have to be involved in the politics of gender to watch it. You could always just sit back and laugh as Linda carries away a handful of penis-shaped baguettes.
Transaction, Tuesdays, ITV2, 10.20pm and available as a boxed set on ITVX.
Picture: ITV
