I finally ordered the first two series of Man Down by Greg Davies. He created it and writes it with Stephen Morrison, Sian Harries, Barry Castagnola and Ed Gamble. Matt Lipsey is the director of all 6 episodes and the Christmas Special. All are contained on one DVD with a making of featurette.
Greg plays a school teacher called Dan, he lives with his girlfriend in a flat attached to his parents house. Dan's not overly fond of teaching but then, he's not that good at his job, nor is he good at getting along with people. Before he was a comedian Greg was an actual teacher for over 10 years, teaching drama and English. They film the show in the same school where Greg really taught. The scenes with the drama class are some of my favorites.
I would love to see their Christmas play Scrooge 3000. Too bad they didn't put that on as an extra.
Deirdre Mullins plays Dan's girlfriend Naomi, Gwyneth Powell plays Polly, Dan's mum, and Rik Mayall plays Richard, Dan's dad. Richard is completely crazy and spends much of his on screen time torturing Dan in strange ways. Polly seems completely oblivious to this. I'm always happy to see Rik Mayall and I'm still sad that he died. I wish he could have done a 2nd series of Man Down. Or anything else. Happily, there are DVDs of The Young Ones, Filthy Rich And Catflap, and Jonathan Creek on the shelf. I can enjoy those over and over.
Roisin Conaty plays Dan's friend Jo and Mike Wozniak plays Dan's friend Brian. Jo's much more out there, totally deluded about life. Roisin is ever so funny. Brian is more down to earth, he's often caught up in Greg's plans because he hasn't the guts to say no. Neither can help Dan when much. That's the main theme of the scripts, Dan's bad time, made worse, of course, by his behavior. It's a common thing in British sitcoms, a guy who's life is filled with failure. Dan sure struggles. I've come to like that sort of comedy. The cast are all great and the situations and dialog made me laugh out loud. I'm looking forward to series 2.
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