Don’t you just hate it when you move down to London to live with your college girlfriend and then the night before the move you have a one-night stand and she dumps you? Except that you’ve signed the rental agreement and you have to live together for the next six months. This is the basic premise for the new C4 sitcom, written by Jess Bray and Alice Snedden.
Break Clause certainly has a classy cast. Lara Ricote, just nominated for Best Show in Edinburgh and recently seen in Sam Campbell’s loopy Make That Movie plays Lil. My own live-in partner found her pretty unbearable at the start, a bit OTT and prone to dancing with strangers in the street, which is a trifle awkward as Ricote said in an interview that she found the part easy to play because Lil is similar to what she is like: “Lil's like me but a little bit heightened.”
On the plus side I liked her and her slightly feckless ex, Ben (Samuel Bottomley). The plot and editing is pretty jittery at the very start though. It seems to jump from short scene to short scene without moving things on very far. Perhaps the camera had ADHD (yes, there is the inevitable ADHD joke in it).
But as the action relocates from Leeds to London the pace starts to settle into a groove. We are on familiar flatshare terrain here as the couple struggle with keys and wait for dad (John Thomson) to arrive in his campervan with the furniture. SNL UK’s Hammed Animashaun does a nifty bit of scene-stealing as a stressed but friendly letting agent who arrives just after the infidelity bombshell has gone off.
In fact the supporting cast has a lot of strong names/faces from the comedy scene. There’s also Jack Shep from SNL UK, US comedy star Catherine Cohen, Charlie Clive from Rooster and Jessica Knappett.
So how are Lil and Sam going to cope with this new arrangement? Are they going to bring other dates back? Will this go full Richard Curtis romcom and will they get back together? I have to say, without a bit more back story it does seem sudden that Lil goes from loved up to dumper, but maybe there is more to it.
I can certainly see a lot of twentysomethings relating. It touches on relationships, settling down and of course the housing crisis. How far would you go to keep a roof over your head? It certainly feels more real than the Lena Dunham Netflix comedy Too Much, which seemed to be set somewhere between an East End council flat and a fantasy meet-cute tourist postcard London. If there are echoes of Rose Matafeo’s Starstruck that might be because Alice Snedden, who co-wrote this, also co-wrote that.
I’ll certainly be sticking with it and actually even my other half conceded that Lara/Lil was pretty charming by the end. I don’t believe in Santa Claus but I’m prepared to believe in Break Clause.
Break Clause, Thursdays from October 1, C4, 10pm.
Pictured L-R - Frances (Charly Clive), Lil (Lara Ricote), Alan (John Thomson), Owen (Nathan Foad), Ben (Samuel Bottomley), Deb (Lucy Black), Liam (Jack Shep) and Nic (Tamika Bennett)
