TV review

Published Monday 13 October 2008 at 15:50 by Harry Venning

Teenager Chloe collects fluffy sheep, and her parents award her a new one whenever she excels at her studies. Boyfriend Matt asks her how many she has.

“I don’t know,” replies Chloe. “Every time I try and count them I fall asleep.”

I mention this halfway decent line in the interests of balance, since everything else about Coming of Age was unremittingly dire.

Of course, it could be me. I am a middle-aged man with a family, gout and a mortgage, far removed from BBC3’s target audience. Who’s to say that the nation’s 16 to 20-year-olds didn’t spent half an hour paralysed with mirth at the wacky antics of Coming Of Age’s sixth-formers with their remorseless parade of wank jokes? Or that the morning after its broadcast, colleges and campuses throughout the land didn’t echo to the sound of memorable lines being enthusiastically repeated such as “Can I have a tit wank?” and “I’ve got blood coming out of my cock”? Perhaps the audience were inspired by the show’s plotline to go find a “fat, minging bird” and make fun of her!

All I know is that I sat through Coming Of Age with the will to live seeping from my every pore, leaving me drenched in a puddle of despair.

Apparently writer Tim Dawson was 19 when he wrote it, which is about six years older than I would have guessed. To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, youth and BBC3 is wasted upon the young.

Sunshine is a comedy drama series starring Steve Coogan as Bob “Bing” Crosby - refuse collector, loving family man, perennial joker and chronic gambling addict.

That Sunshine succeeds so effectively as both comedy and drama is down to a witty and original script by Craig Cash and Phil Mealey - including an agonising and unexpected twist at the climax of episode one - combined with a very impressive performance from Coogan, who manages to strike just the right note between amiable and infuriating, amusing and appalling.

Indeed, Sunshine is so well done that it is almost too painful to watch, and it’s going to require something of an act of will from me to return for a further helping of Bob’s wilful self-destruction. The jokes and great lines certainly come thick and fast, but the underlying mood is one of despair with just a hint of impending doom. When Bob is inevitably parted from £900 of his family’s holiday money, the portentous opera score that accompanies his downfall sounds all too appropriate for his sorry situation.

On reflection, it could be me, but it isn’t. I really enjoyed E4’s Inbetweeners, which covered exactly the same late teen territory as Coming Of Age, but with wit, skewed charm and imagination, plus even greater vulgarity, immaturity and outrageousness.

Piers Morgan interviewed Mickey Rourke for The Dark Side of Fame. At least, Piers claimed that it was Mickey Rourke. It could have been anybody underneath the scar tissue, puffy cheeks and catastrophic cosmetic surgery.

DETAILS

Coming of Age, BBC3, Tuesday October 8, 10.30pm

Sunshine, BBC1, Tuesday October 7, 9pm

Dark Side of Fame, BBC1, Monday October 6, 10.35pm