Lena Dunham's latest project, Too Much, was not what I expected. The last thing I thought I'd see was Dunham doing her own take on Bridget Jones/Richard Curtis, but to me that's my overriding feeling of Dunham's new Netflix series. Certainly judging by the opening episode anyway.

 

As you should probably know by now, comedian Megan Stalter plays chaotic Jessica, who arrives in the UK after a messy break-up. Her vision of London – and English men – seems to have been shaped by a mixture of Jane Austen, Helen Fielding and Love, Actually on a loop. Alan Rickman would be her dream date. Someone needs to tell her he is dead.

 

I know shows have to hit the ground running but within a few hours of dumping her bags in her flat she's out watching an indie night in a pub and meeting a musician, Felix (Will Sharpe) who might just be her real life Alan Rickman (although to complicate things he is seeing someone). Doesn't anyone get jet lag any more? 

 

And that's really the plot. Will Jessica find love in London? I found Too Much funny and engaging, but watching this as a Londoner though I also found it jarring. Jessica is booked into a flat on an "estate" and imagines a manor house. Instead it's a council estate, a gag you can see coming a mile off. Though actually the flat is a lot nicer than some places I stayed in on my youthful travels.

 

Despite her supposedly being in dodgy digs, the city looks pretty nice and pretty cool. At times Jessica in London threatens to be a sibling of Emily In Paris. As ever it's easy to be pedantic. When she goes to the pub it looks like my local the Ivy House in Nunhead, but when she walks outside and chats to Felix, who has just done a drippy acoustic set, it looks like she is near London Bridge. And how did she get her skinny rat-dog on her transatlantic flight? I presume it's an empathy pet but if so I don't think that was mentioned. And is there no quarantine?

 

And some jokes don't quite land for me. When she gets an old school taxi from the airport the gawd blimey driver says as he drops her that the fare is £95. That sounds pretty reasonable if you are stupid or rich enough to get a cab from the airport, are we supposed to think it's a silly amount and/or she is being ripped off? 

 

Shows made for an international market always have to tread a thin line between getting things right and pissing off the locals. Watching spy thriller Department Q a few weeks back, every time it went to a different location and flashed the place up on the screen I got the ick. I think at one point it might have said something like "Oxford City". Who in the UK has ever called Oxford Oxford City?

 

Anyway, I digress. Too Much is quite a lot of fun and i haven't even got to see Richard E Grant as her boss (was Hugh "just as posh but no relation" Grant not available?). Music fans might be amused to spot Don Letts as the compere at the open mic night. It was either Don or a convincing AI version.

 

Megan Stalter is certainly very OTT watchable and Lena Dunham herself pitches up briefly as her sister back in America. I want to stick with it mainly because I'm intrigued to see what they can get wrong as well as right about London. But also because, don't tell anyone, I'm slightly hooked.