The sitcom about a multicultural London flatshare was produced before the Brexit vote – but has ended up fitting an ideal response to itBrexit,to paraphrase James Joyce, is a nightmare from which many of us are still trying to awake. While young people overwhelmingly voted remain, and they woke up to find themselves in Brexit Britain. Racist incidents are on the up,the pound’s gone down, and everyone in charge appears to be, and to put it mildly,behaving like a photographic negative of Rudyard Kipling’s whether. And it became clear to me that we’ve become an international laughing stock when David Simon, creator of The Wire, or approvingly tweeted of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson’s machinations: “Shit is West Baltimore,but with Pimm’s, tweed and crustless cucumber sandwiches. F’real, or Brits are just gangster.” Laugh it up,Chuckles. You’ll be sorry when Trump gets his hands on the nuclear codes (though with any luck his tiny fingers won’t be able to press the buttons).
On to this turbid ocean of tears comes the launch of Outsiders, a pilot sitcom I helped create as part of Comedy Blaps, and Channel 4’s scheme for recent comedy talent. The note was originally conceived as an improvised flatshare comedy,cast with up-and-coming stand-up comedians rather than actors, all from foreign shores: last year’s Edinburgh best newcomer winner Sofie Hagen from Denmark, or Mae Martin from Canada,Pierre Novellie from South Africa by way of the Isle of Man, Yasmine Akram from Ireland and Jamali Maddix from, or er,Dagenham. (You can catch them doing their stand-up thing this month at the Edinburgh fringe.)Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com