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Dom Robinson reviews

Series 2

Broadcast on

BBC2, Tuesdays 10pm

Buy Series 1 from

Director:

Declan Lowney

Producers:

Rosemary McGowan and Paul Whitehouse

Screenplay:

Paul Whitehouse and David Cummings

Music:

Philip Pope

Cast:

Danny: Paul Whitehouse
Terry: Mark Heap
Rachel: Fiona Allen
Angus: Clive Russell
Sid: Pearce Quigley
Charlie: Johnny Vegas

Happiness is a comedy drama series starring Paul Whitehouse as Danny, who began series one with with a crisis on his hands. On the one hand, he's the successful voice of Dexter, a kung-fu nurse bear, yet he was also approaching 40, had a low sperm count and his wife had only just died. He had to embark on the dating game once again, with his friends including ex-girlfriend Rachel (Smack the Pony's Fiona Allen, her husband Terry (Spaced's Mark Heap), plus flatmates Sid (Pearce Quigley) and Charlie (Johnny Vegas) and man-about-town, Angus (Clive Russell).

Strangely, this excellent series doesn't get a quick-repeat the same week, so if you miss it the once, that's your lot.

Episode 1: A Little Bit of Love
Episode 2: A Nice Person
Episode 3: Real Dancing
Episode 4: Perspective
Episode 5: Old Bloke at the Door
Episode 6: People Move On

Episode 1: A Little Bit of Love

Taking the title of the Free tune, it's what Rachel and Terry decide that Danny needs, and promptly set him up with a mutual friend, Neela (Amita Dhiri). At the same time, Danny's promised himself a month off the booze and an early night for a change... like that'll happen.

Rachel and Terry, with two children and now a nanny, seem also to have adopted the dialogue from Cold Feet's Karen and David, as their homelife is brought before the camera.

As Terry states down the pub that Neela's a friend, Sid professes that it's impossible for a man to just be friends with a woman, but before we go all "When Harry Met Sally", Johnny Vegas drops into stand-up briefly as Charlie, telling how one thing leads to another. Then, in walks Neela, but while the cast largely fawn over her, I thought she was a bit too gap-toothed for my liking, and not that attractive, but I don't do the casting and Jenna Jameson probably wasn't available.

On the way to the date, Danny just about manages to avoid the Big Issue seller (one of the irregular recurring jokes in the series) on the way to the big date... and one that doesn't go to plan. Paul Whitehouse drops into various Fast Show-style characters in a bid to make her laugh, but she doesn't take him on as he tells her in that style what not to eat.

Danny loves just about any kind of music except jazz... the only genre that Neela loves. Her favourite is Miles Davis, yet Danny confesses to his friends the next day that listening to Miles Davis makes him physically sick. When time comes for Neela to play the artist in her flat to him, it results in a hilarious scene, culminating in Danny's "hair in a tin" secret being found out as she discovers the blackness covering his bald patch.

Meanwhile, Sid and Charlie are at home, drinking, and watching Nigella Lawson on TV talk suggestively. As she whips her eggs into a frenzy, Charlie looks bleary-eyed at the TV. Sid shouts, "Charlie!", followed by the sound of a zip being done back up as Charlie comes to his senses. Gross! :)

Down the pub things aren't as promising. Sid and Charlie muse on the possibility of them having been dropped given that no-one else is about, until Angus turns up, leading to an excellent sight-gag as all three play air guitar to the 'wolf whistle' slide in Steve Miller's "The Joker".

The next time Neela and Danny see each other, he takes her to meet Kathy Burke, as herself, providing the voice for the Dexter series, but this second date goes even worse than the first as Kathy mistakes Neela as the one who makes the coffee. Such a shame that more wasn't made of Kathy Burke's appearance, and it comes off looking like a quick "let's shove a celebrity in for no good reason" moment.

That night down the pub, Sid whinges about how he gets older there's a decreasing amount in the things in life he cares about, be it "a new three-part drama series from the BBC" or "a new U2 album". The items in particular aren't important, but it does strike a chord as there's less things in life we feel we should concern ourselves with.

Angus has the answer to their dilemma. "The pub is dead.", he declares, and suggests a club. He goes, but the others stay behind, until Charlie sees the positives of the idea and belatedly sets off but fails to get in. Sid plays the martyr and stays behind.

In the episode's final scenes, as Terry and Neela disect her date with Danny, the earlier echoes come back to haunt and an attraction deepens between the two. Meanwhile, Danny's round Rachel's chatting about life and... lips begin to lock for them too. What consequences will this bring?

Episode 2: A Nice Person

The second episode begins with Danny having a paranoid dream about being in the dock and found guilty of a passionate embrace with his ex. When reality kicks in there's exchanging of phone calls for both the mismatched couples, both agreeing that it's just a drunken snog and the men not wanting it to spoil their friendship.

As the day progresses, Terry confesses to Angus and Neela confesses to Danny, in the latter scene Neela telling Danny that she feels she can tell him this as there's no chemistry between them, which makes Danny feel rather put out. Neela tells him, "You're a nice person", to which Danny scoffs.

There's a brilliant moment where a bum asks Danny for spare change while he's getting money out of a cashpoint. He ignores him, but when that happened to me I replied as I walked away, "Yes, thanks!", to which he replied "Bastard!", so I retorted, "No, my parents WERE married thankyou!"

Meanwhile, Sid and Charlie prepare to drive around town in a white van, having painted on Dexter's image proclaiming "We Do Anything!", but while Charlie's putting the finishing touches to the bear, there's a classic sight gag as Sid opens the van door, which knocks Charlie's ladder over and sends him crashing into the paint tins. "Stop pissing about Charlie!", Sid tells him.

Terry refuses to take the hint from Neela, leading to a return visit to her flat, while Rachel goes back to work as an artist and the man Angus puts her in touch with is one who she'd rather been in touch with in a different way as she fantasises.

The generation gap is shown later as Danny relates a Fawlty Towers sketch to the two Tobys, his producers, while they reply with the Matrix-style shooting scene from Spaced, complete with sound effects, quite apt since two of the cast have been in that programme (Mark Heap and Clive Russell).

Danny temporarily sees the light and decides that he wants to help people in general, because being nice to other people makes them nice back to you, and so on, but it doesn't, and he soon drops that. Later on, Sid and Charlie get a letter threatening legal action if they don't remove the painted image of Dexter from their van. Unconnected?

This is shaping up to be an excellent second series and the sort of thing that could last a few more to come if they can maintain the quality.

Perhaps, as Danny's a man experiencing single life all over again, this could be BBC2's answer to Dream On?

Episode 3: Real Dancing

The stage has been set for Terry and Neela's affair, which continues without anyone important finding out, while Danny continues to ramble on about how bad life is even though he makes a packet out of being the voice of a kung-fu nurse bear.

This episode centres around the dance hall, not to pop music but to salsa music, starting with Rachel flirting with a local muscle-bound Spaniard type but by the end of the episode everyone's down there.

Now enter the newest protogees, Sid and Charlie, the former trying to look his smartest in a suit from at least 40 years ago and the latter looking so out of place it's not true. However, incredibly, they manage to pull! They even get the girls back to their flat. Things take a while... but passion starts to boil over.

Danny still manages to get a girl to a hotel room... but she's one paid for by Angus, a prostitute we see that he enjoys on a regular basis from the pre-credits sequence.

There's a guest slot for Ricky Gervais, recording lines for Dexter, but the is-he-David-Brent-in-reality-or-not gags that follow aren't particularly memorable ones and, like Kathy Burke's appearance in episode 1, it becomes rather a wasted opportunity.

There's a great line comes from Danny one breakfast time while watching Westlife on the TV: "God, boybands! Give me a gun and five minutes with the lot of 'em! I'll be doing the bloody world a favour.", plus later when he tries to distinguish a lotion that cleans with one that cleanses to a bemused shop assistant, enquiring as to whether the latter "goes up to 11?"

Episode 4: Perspective

Rachel and Neela are out having a drink, and Rachel knows something is wrong as she saw a text message on Terry's phoned which was signed "N". She says she knows he's having an affair. Neela solemnly confesses, "It's me.". "I thought it was", replies Rachel.

As such, Danny wakes to find Terry on his doorstep, looking for a place to stay. Danny's still embittered because while Terry easily got his end away with Neela, he never got the chance.

Next up, in the recording studio, one of the Tobys has his life on track by managing to pull the gorgeous Melissa (model Gabrielle Richens), leaving Danny tongue-tied, the moment only spoiled, as is a later scene, because the backing music used has been done on the cheap, borrowing a riff from BBC Choice/Three's 60 Seconds.

After pressuring his agent, he finally gets the chance to audition for a drama, "Wet Feet", about a group of middle-class professional thirtysomethings living in a suburban dreamscape. "So it's like Cold Feet, then?", comments Danny, but they don't take him up on that.

Then comes one of the funniest moments of the episode - Angus has a heart attack while in his 'scooter' (well, it's not as callous as it sounds), to the tune of Gary Glitter's "Rock N Roll Part 2", which matches perfectly to the beep of his heart monitor. The incident causes several members of the cast to later discuss "that puts things into perspective", mostly without realising how to follow that up and that it doesn't put anything into perspective.

And in the hospital, it took a little while before I realised it was Maria McErlane playing Angus' ex-wife, because of her close-cropped hair.

Since Sid and Charlie have some money to burn, 'charlie' is what they're spending it on, making breakfast go with a bang before setting off on their odd jobs. Danny joins them for a late-night buzz, which goes on a little too long.

Charlie later promises to take his kids to Disneyland, after Sid suggests it with the money they're making, but it blows up in his face when he finds out the cost.

As the day draws to a close and Terry gets it into his head that Danny's doing the dirty on him with Rachel, culminating in the former getting it wrong and relieving himself in the bushes... only at the start of the scene Charlie was with him and he's since disappeared...

Episode 5: Old Bloke at the Door

Embarrassed at having accused Danny of sleeping with Rachel, Terry feels he should move out and takes up residence with reprobates Sid and Charlie.

Charlie proves to his ex-wife, Denise, that he can be true to his word and hands over the all-expenses paid trip to Disneyworld for her to go with their children.

Meanwhile, in the studio Danny tries to convince the two Tobys that there is life to music from his era by 'rocking out' to Deep Purple's Black Night, yet how can those two be into Frank Sinatra? The generation gap widens and baffles.

There's a guest appearance from Donna Air, coming in to voice a few lines, after which the voice behind Dexter completely fails to get off with her over a drink. "You know what I hate? Going out with other showbiz people... I can't bear it. Other famous people... That's why it's nice being here with you.", to which he's clearly dejected.

He does attempt to improve upon this by using the white Toby's joke about rhyming "Air", as in Donna, with "Bear", as in Dexter. After too many alliterations culminating in "Air spends night with Bear", she concludes, "Ok, that's enough".

The two scruffs make a success of a house clearance job for an old lady, yet come a cropper when they think they've run over her cat and death makes a comedy out of a tragedy, yet again.. Thankfully, she confirms that "Mr K" is right there in her arms. Sighs all round and ecstatic praise from Charlie, "That's the loveliest fucking cat I've ever seen!" On the way home they stop to chuck the stray dead moggy out the van window.

Relationships exchange fortunes at a charity visit to the local hospital, as Danny pulls the coy woman organising it, while Charlie's having increasing difficulty getting Jane to return his calls (Note to all women: if you're not interested in a guy, TELL him, don't piss him about by pretending you're interested and then doing nothing else..., but like the Murphy's I'm not bitter). This scene doesn't sit right because earlier on in the episode the two were cuddling up in the pub, so why has she gone off him so soon?

However, despite finding a new beau, there's no way Danny can communicate his vision of Dexter's stories having an "underlying adult subtext" - something which rears its head later on as he chats to Amanda's teenage daughter, who refers to him as "the old bloke at the door".

Angus is now back home, with dinner having been prepared by his ex-wife, Shirley, when a younger girl pops up at the wrong moments to take him out to a nightclub. Bad timing and wrong things being said leads to calamity.

Terry attempts to patch things up with Rachel by wooing his way back to cook a meal, bath the kids, do the washing, et al, and it almost seems to be working until she slips in, during dinner, "...You're not staying", leaving Terry incredibly disheartened. She's not going to make this easy for him. As the programme draws to a close, things are beginning to pick up for the warring couple though.

While Charlie wallows in Singlesville, the Chi-Lites "Have You Seen Her?" plays in the background as the credits roll. Back at the old lady's house, she emerges from the front door... looking for "Mrs K". Oops!

Episode 6: People Move On

And things seem to have moved on a little too quickly over the space of six episodes. Okay, so there is meant to have been some time between each one but it would be nice if this had been marked out somehow, rather than making us assume that each week between broadcasts was around the same time between the happenings onscreen.

That aside, we begin with Danny attempting to learn karate, although the sight of kids doing it is probably enough effort just to watch. Flowers are then delivered to Amanda's door, so he's obviously not lost his romantic touch, plus one to her daughter Tammy as well.

Love's still a bum-wrap for Charlie as he can hear Sid and Charlotte getting romantic with a massage before the two Nigella fans leave for work, so he interrupts with a loud chorus of the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love", much to their annoyance. Sid tries to tell Charlie that people move on in life, but what's he trying to signify?

Charlotte tells Charlie, while all three are out and about later on, that the way Jane treated him was diabolical. Of course, we haven't seen this, apart from the one time when she wasn't returning his calls. There's a heartfelt moment later as he watches Nigella once again, indulges in a whole chocolate cake and sheds a few tears.

Angus is still trying to woo Shirley back to the fold but it's not really working. He can feign the strength of his illness a bit, but surely she's the one who'll know him the best and so can see through him?

What he is waking up to, as well as a cute blonde, is the fact that being over 50 means that he's no longer a spring chicken and that he should grow old gracefully and take things easy.

When Danny and Amanda meet up for a romantic boat trip, she makes clear her feelings for him and that it's time to do the horizontal mambo, especially since the house is empty... except it isn't, and Tammy's skipped college to spend the afternoon with her pot-smoking friends.

That evening, after Danny's spent a less-than-successful time at a Japanese restaurant with most of the rest of the cast, during which we learn that The Vapours' "Turning Japanese" was all about masturbation, followed by an unseen night in the pub, he's pissed enough to ring Amanda and make a complete arse of himself, claiming as he begins that he'll be embarrassed in the morning about making the call, and then puts his foot right in it when, after the earlier misfortunes, he tells his beloved that her daughter his her problem and nothing to do with him. D'oh!

Another development is that Terry and Rachel are finally back together after much dallying about and the entire cast are sat around a pub table as the show comes to a close. Danny tries to eulogise about what it is to be a man, after he insulted and then learned a lot from the Big Issue seller, causing the once-warring couple to call it a night and head off home together. Angus states that he's had his two fizzy waters for the evening and sets off as well, closely followed by Sid and Charlotte. Charlie tells Danny that they're moving in together so that's doubled his rent until he can find someone else...

It's then that an argument develops between the two remaining mates, as Danny tries to reclaim his lost youth through drunk talk and Charlie replies that having kids brings that back - something Danny won't get the chance to do for a while, if ever, but seeing the widower looking down, tries to get him up by talking about the Disneyland trip, to which the reply comes, "I'll never see that money again am I?" and things spiral downward from there, with Charlie accusing Danny of scoring points over him.

People do move on, but what of those who are left?

The following is a list of all the Happiness releases reviewed online to date :


2001	Happiness Series 1 DVD
2003	Happiness Series 2 TV broadcast

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Dom Robinson reviews

Series 2

Broadcast on

BBC2, Tuesdays 10pm

Buy Series 1 from

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2003.

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Dom Robinson reviews

Series 2

Broadcast on BBC2, Tuesdays 10pm

Buy Series 1 from

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2003.

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Tags

Pages

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Broadcast on

BBC2, Tuesdays 10pm