ITVX has been making a big noise about their upcming sitcom roster recently, suggesting that comedy is finally coming back to ITV. They've made a great start with Alan Carr's Changing Ends, but Significant Other is a different animal altogther. At times watching the first episode I wasn't even sure if it counts as a comedy.
Katherine Parkinson and Youssef Kerkour play Anna and Sam, two people thrown together while going through their own personal trauma. He has just attempted to take his life after his marriage break-up by necking pills when she knocks on his door. She is a neighbour who is having a heart attack and has been told by 999 to wait with someone until the ambulance comes. By the time the medics get there they have two patients to rush to hospital.
So far so unfunny then, and the laughs continues to not come as they recover and get to know each other. I'd say they become friends, but it's much more tentative than that. The title comes from the fact that Sam needs someone to sign his discharge so that he can leave the hospital and she is the only person he knows who is nearby. Yet when Anna leaves in an Uber she doesn't immediately offer him a lift despite the fact that they are obviosuly heading in the same direction.
Direction, in fact, is what Significant Other lacks. I have no issues about the lack of jokes. In fact I quite admired how long the programme ran without any dialogue at all. And the two leads do make you warm to them a bit, despite their failings. Parkinson will never not be watchable and Kerkour is as good in this as we was in the asylum seeker comedy Home, even if his character appears more complex and less charming.
The series is adapted from an Israeli hit and has a good supporting cast including Kelle Bryan (Me and Mrs Jones) as Sam’s wife Shelley, Mark Heap (Friday Night Dinner, Spaced); Ben Bailey Smith (Andor, The Split) ; Sue Vincent (Alma’s Not Normal, Mount Pleasant); Shaun Williamson (EastEnders, Extras); Olivia Poulet (Doc Martin, The Thick of It) and Will Ash (Death in Paradise, The Rising) as Paul.
It's certainly a bold move for ITV - I assume at some point this will be broadcast on ITV1, the channel that gave us Rising Damp and On The Buses. This would look odd on BBC4, the channel that gave us that pretty bleak Jo Brand hospital comedy Getting On. Yet having seen just one episode I do feel I want to watch more. Partly because I'll watch anything with Katherine Parkinson in it, partly because I want to see if it gets worse or better.
Significant Other is now streaming on ITVX.
