Help: What the Must Watch reviewers think
Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.
This week Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan share their thoughts on Help on Channel 4. Jodie Comer stars as a carer in a Liverpool care home who forms a bond with Stephen Graham’s patient. Their friendship is put to the test when the Covid-19 pandemic hits.
Channel 4
Scott says: "Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham’s chemistry is electric"
"This two hour drama by Jack Thorne is completely and emotionally devastating. This is a dramatisation of the horrors care home residents and staff have been facing throughout the pandemic, all based on extensive reporting and research.
"Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham’s chemistry is electric and so utterly believable. Instead of this becoming a typical issues based drama, it feels so much more because you follow their story so closely. The last part of the drama feels a bit disconnected from the rest, but it is still a Must Watch regardless.
"There’s this agonising 20 minute scene in the middle. You see Jodie’s character in complete despair because she has no guidance on what to do as the virus sweeps the care home. She has to think on her feet and do it with no equipment, wearing bin bags as PPE as none had been provided.
"Seeing such heart-breaking scenes are all the more difficult to watch when you know that this is what it has actually been like for many people."
Channel 4
Hayley says: "A very domestic and very real horror movie"
"Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham are two of the best actors we have right now and this shows what they can do brilliantly. It’s not a fancy set, there are no fancy costumes — Jodie Comer is literally wearing a bin bag at one point. It’s just them in a dull-looking residential home and they keep us glued to the screen.
"Unlike the James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan Covid drama that we reviewed a few months ago (Together, on iPlayer) I think this is a genuinely important piece of drama about the pandemic. It’s not telling us stuff we already know about our own lives and how much toilet paper we bought, it's giving us a window into a world most of us only heard about on the news. It gives a face and a story to the statistics that we heard over and over again. But it is not an easy watch, and if you’re still angry, like I am, about how catastrophically badly this crisis has been handled and continues to be handled, it will make your blood boil.
"I think Jack Thorne is one of our best screenwriters at the moment. This is just as good, maybe even better than the work he has done so far. The director Marc Munden has also done an excellent job. He uses the idea of the motion sensor lights in this building as the lighting, so we see a lot of Jodie Comer walking into dark corridors that suddenly spring into light, which really highlights how she’s the only staff member left as residents are dying around her. It’s basically a very domestic and very real horror movie."
Channel 4
Help airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Thursday 16th September. You can catch up on All4.
Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other good podcast providers.
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