Must Watch reviews: Daddy Issues
When hedonistic 24 year old Gemma discovers she’s pregnant after a random hook-up, she has no choice but to turn to her hapless father, Malcolm, for support.
Malcolm is unable to load a washing machine, boil an egg or microwave rice without it exploding. Up until now, he’s been living in squalor with a fellow divorcee until Gemma asks him to move in with her.
Daddy Issues is a big hearted story about a father and daughter, and the reality of facing up to parenthood - at any stage of life, but is it a Must Watch?
‘This is a very promising debut’
Scott: “It is [a Must Watch] for me. The sitcom is pretty formulaic in its setup. A father and daughter who end up living together in adulthood. They don’t get on at first, but you see them rekindle their relationship.
“There are two things that make it special. Firstly, the acting. David Morrissey is great, and plays the hopeless divorced dad very well. Aimee Lou Wood is also superb. There’s also Sharon Rooney from My Mad Fat Diary.
“And it also works because of the writing. It contains so much wit. Every line feels fresh, relatable and gives it a real distinctive style.”
‘The real success of it, is the writing’
“It's written by Danielle Ward, who's written for Brassic. She got on a scheme that the BBC does called BBC Writers Room, which gives opportunities for new and up and coming writers.
“Then this is a result of one of those schemes. It's great. One thing we were making a point on Must Watch a few weeks ago is that comedy as a genre is struggling. Sitcoms as a genre are struggling just because fewer shows are made.
“They're not by default, particularly profitable. You have had big successes, huge shows, of course, but they can take years before they really find an audience or become mainstream hits. This is a very promising debut, and I really hope it will run well.
“We used to have a better set up, I think, in terms of supporting people when they were coming into the industry, in terms of allowing them, particularly in writing, to get the experience and work out their distinctive voices. So many of our greatest writers in this country, in TV and in film, have come through soaps and have come through smaller channels.
“I think what's been a concern is that not only smaller channels like BBC Four, who used to do comedy, don’t make as many new shows. Daytime soaps like Doctors are ending, so there are fewer opportunities. If you manage to give someone the experience to try things out then in two, three, four decades time, they're writing shows like Happy Valley, which end up having 10 million viewers, become the bigger sensation and get lots of awards".
‘It had a lot of truth and heart in it’
Hayley: “I agree with everything Scott said. I thought this was funny, and it had a lot of truth and heart in it too. I mean, anyone who's had to deal with their own recently divorced middle-aged dad will find this a little too relatable, probably.
“It's exaggerated here, but this is clearly observed by someone who knows how quickly divorced dads fall apart and how much you have to control their lives. It also has that thing of seeing your parents as humans who don't know what they're doing either, rather than how you saw them as a kid, which I think is quite a shock to everybody when you have that moment.
“It's also fun seeing David Morrissey in a comedic role. The last two things we've seen him in, he was playing very serious detective roles. There was Sherwood, and then there was The Long Shadow, which was the Peter Sutcliffe murders. In this one, he's a man who doesn't know how to empty a bin properly. And he can do comedy, but he then brings the dramatic abilities to the scenes that are also heavy. So I thought both of them were great in this.
“I think we're so used to seeing him as this drama guy that he must get to a point and go, I just want to do something silly. That's probably why he did this. He was probably when, I just want to do something silly, I don't want to be a detective again”.
Daddy Issues will premiere on BBC Three on 15 August at 9pm.
Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other podcasts providers.
This week the team also reviewed Love is Blind UK and The Body Next Door.
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