Nobody has mined their unfolding life for comic inspiration quite as well as Sharon Horgan, From Pulling to Catastrophe and beyond (co-writing Motherland and creating Divorce for Sarah Jessica Parker, which I particularly liked) Horgan has tapped into her own experiences – and those of her contemporaries – to find the funny. Usually the painfully watch-between-your-fingers funny.
And now in her fifties and divorced she has come up with Youth - so titled because of the idea that your fifties is the youth of middle age. No decade moves as fast, she suggests (though try telling that to someone in their sixties) so make the most of it.
And literary agent Alex (Horgan) is certainly doing her best at making the most of it. She has decided to embark on the dating scene, even though in the first episode she has suddenly been laid low by an arthritic jaw. What has caused it? she asks the doctor (played with realistic deadpan humour by Alice Lowe). The answer is simply age.
But Alex is not one to let something like this hold her back. She soon goes on a night out with an older friend of a friend played by Tim McInnerny, which is excruciatingly funny.
Meanwhile her ex-husband (Owen McDonnell), with the obligatory new younger partner reveals he has a job abroad, leaving her to cope with her ageing parents and, in the first episode, a son Ruari (Aran Murphy, Cillian’s son) who is going through the typically terrible teenage years.
Elsewhere she is trying to juggle her successful career. There’s a great cameo from Damian Lewis as a pompous, pretentious author.
It’s not clear which bits are autobiographical – and at a recent launch Horgan certainly wasn’t saying – but there’s no denying that a lot of this is highly relatable. Horgan has a way of pinpointing universal moments that touch a very raw nerve.
You certainly don’t have to be a fiftysomething woman to find Youth funny. Or have an arthritic jaw. This is the kind of pin-sharp comedy that manages to feel very real and hilarious at the same time.
Youth streams on HBO Max in the UK from September 21.
Picture: HBO Max.
