Mandy review – I am fully converted to Diane Morgan’s genius

When this sitcom about a jobless woman hits its ridiculous slapstick stride, it can feel like sorcery. But the comedy has lost some of its magic in this erratic new seriesThe title sequence for Mandy, the short-form sitcom from Diane Morgan (Motherland, Philomena Cunk), tells you everything and nothing about the programme you are about to watch. Clad in a stonewashed denim biker jacket and diamante earrings, a voluminous hairpiece plonked (perhaps backwards) on top of her head, our titular protagonist stands on some kind of spinning platform, soundtracked by the maudlin strains of Barry Manilow’s Mandy. Her face is contorted into a sideways pout; she looks worried, but vacant.Now in its fourth series, the show is in some senses a character study of the eponymous Mandy Carter, a single, chronically jobless woman with a remarkable knee-led walk whose attempts to secure employment are continually scuppered by a combination of bad luck and bad attitude; she is a work-shy chancer for whom a cigarette break is always the number one priority. But Mandy is more of a tone piece than a serious examination of a mind: we stay firmly on the surface of our hero’s world and, beyond the basic emotions (fear, indignation, excitement at the prospect of a quick buck), there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount going on in her head. Continue reading...

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