Crashing is a British comedy series written by and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. There are six short episodes of this funny look at a group of people who live together as property guardians of a disused hospital.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Lulu is on a bus with a backpack and a ukulele. At her destination, she finds her way to the hospital. A huge birthday party is underway for Sam (Jonathan Bailey).
Lulu is spotted by Anthony (Damien Molony) who is thrilled to see her. He introduces her to his girlfriend Kate (Louise Ford) as “My Lulu.” We quickly sense the truth – Lulu has sought out Anthony because she wants to be more than lifetime friends. Kate senses it, too. The relationship between this triangle is sharp and wobbly and full of strange and inappropriate surprising twists.
In but a mere 6 half-hour episodes, the characters are finely drawn and unique, a testament to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s skill as a writer. The trivia for the series says, “The series had its origin in two short plays – one about Anthony and Lulu, and one about Sam and Fred. They were well received, and Waller-Bridge was convinced to expand the story into a screenplay.”
Sam has an unacknowledged thing for Fred (Amit Shah), which gets complicated when Fred starts seeing Will (Lachie Chapman). This love triangle that leads to many laughs and some soul searching. Sam is one of those privileged white men who gets away with being awful.
The final regular resident in the hospital is Melody (Julie Dray). She speaks in a French accent and paints. She gloms onto a miserable fellow named Colin (Adrian Scarborough) and brings him into the hospital to paint him. There’s a love triangle (pentagon?) with Melody and Colin, too, but I won’t reveal that twist.
The dialog is full of horrifying social gaffes, the action is packed with truth-filled ukulele numbers, and the characters are quirky and slightly bonkers.
Other characters include Susan Wokoma as a work friend of Kate’s and Kathy Burke as Lulu’s hilariously creepy Aunt Gladys.
If you appreciate Phoebe Waller-Bridge (and if you don’t, you should) you’ll enjoy this series. You can watch the whole thing in one evening. It’s currently on Netflix. Here’s a trailer that ran in the UK.
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loved this series. thank you for hipping me to it. i agree that the characters are well developed – impressive given how short each episode is.
It’s a treat I think a lot of people are missing out on.
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