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Avoidance is a new drama on BBC1 starring the omnipresent Romesh Ranganathan as Romesh Ranganathan (Cinderella 2021).
Okay, his character is called Jonathan, but in this, his partner, Claire (Jessica Knappett), is splitting up from him, even though he’d rather not, not least because it means he’d be the one moving out. Plus, they’ll have to tell their 9-year-old son, Spencer (Kieran Logendra), which reminds me of when my parents told us that they were getting divorced, and I was aged 10 at the time.
Along the way, he keeps trying to avoid the truth – hence the title – and will do whatever he can to ensure this happens, including running (or rather, driving) away from the situation when they’re meant to be having the heart to heart with their son.
This includes him taking Spencer to his sister, Danielle’s (Mandeep Dhillon – Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker), place – who lives with her girlfriend, Courtney (Lisa McGrillis – Deadwater Fell), as well as for a game of Laser Quest for his friend’s birthday party.
Along the way, there’s a few tragi-comedy asides that happen which are kind of amusing, despite being in relation to the seriousness of the situation.
As for whether it’s any good, I was expecting this to be completely terrible, but I watched two episodes and… whle the first one was fairly decent, the second just rather meandered along without advancing the story in any meaningful way, and I feel I’ve seen enough. In the end, I didn’t particularly like or dislike it, I was just left a bit… ‘meh’.
Avoidance is on BBC1 on Friday June 10th 9.30pm. It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
After episode 1 is broadcast, I expect the entire series it will be on the BBC iPlayer.
Director: Benjamin Green
Producer: Arnold Widdowson
Creators: Benjamin Green, Romesh Ranganathan
Writers: Benjamin Green, Romesh Ranganathan, Neil Webster, Kefi Chadwick
Music: Holley Gray, Toby Knowles
Cast:
Jonathan: Romesh Ranganathan
Danielle: Mandeep Dhillon
Courtney: Lisa McGrillis
Claire: Jessica Knappett
Darren: Tommy Finnegan
Amanda: Jessica Fostekew
Spencer: Kieran Logendra
Waitress: Tianna Heffenden
Gerald: Col Farrell
Emma: Miai Leonie Philip
Keith: Tony Jayawardena
Jed: Cohen Day
Jed’s Dad: Bruce MacKinnon
Sweaty man: David William-Green
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.