Starstruck: A giddy confection that helps rehabilitate the romcom
TV review: Rose Matafeo’s new show is Notting Hill for Generation Instagram
about 3 hours ago
For proof that everything comes back into fashion eventually, look no further than the rehabilitation of the romcom. Once regarded as a soppy hellscape presided over by Richard Curtis and a pre-True Detective Matthew McConaughey, the genre is today on the up-and-up. That’s thanks to feelgood Netflix confections such as To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and to Palm Springs, aka Groundhog Day for millennials.
And thanks also, potentially, to
Starstruck (BBC One, Monday, 10.45pm), the New Zealand stand-up Rose Matafeo’s tilt at the milieu. Quirky and quippy, it’s essentially Curtis’s Notting Hill reimagined for Generation Instagram – or Normal People with warmth and wit replacing Marxism for Beginners.