Last modified on Thu 17 Dec 2020 23.37 EST
Three lots of six episodes and one special: 280 minutes, in mockumentary format, of some of the most tender, densely written, hysterically funny television you are ever likely to see. It was created by siblings Daisy May and Charlie Cooper, and follows the tiny trials and tribulations that dance comically atop the underlying tragedies of early twentysomething cousins Kerry (Daisy May) and Lee “Kurtan” Mucklowe (Charlie) in the small village somewhere between Swindon (reachable if you plan and prepare carefully enough) and Bristol, which ranks in the Mucklowe mind somewhere between Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Spanner-handed” Kerry is a dedicated self-mythologiser who hangs out with year 7s to maintain the necessary sense of superiority it requires. Kurtan is a perilous few per cent brighter than she and, in the first series especially, it is his occasional, fleeting feeling that life might somewhere, somehow be something you could control, rather than a series of disappointing events inflicted on you, that cuts the comedy with heartbreak. Elsewhere, it is Kerry’s naked need to be loved by her worthless father, Martin, that undoes you. It is This Country’s great gift to get you crying with laughter one moment, and then too stunned with grief to shed a single tear the other. If you don’t believe me, watch Kerry’s birthday episode. You will never look at a Soda Stream again without weeping.