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The Curse is an ’80s-set crime comedy, beginning with a prologue which mixes slamming of Thatcher’s government as she destroyed the working classes, in with the rise of the Yuppies, and how it leads to everyone being out for themselves.
After this, we learn Natasha (Emer Kenny) is married to Albert (Allan Mustafa) and works with him at their local cafe, but in her eyes, he’s rather a soft touch. We’re also introduced to Mick (Tom Davis), a man who tries to talk a big game – but he’s talking out of his hat, Phil (Hugo Chegwin) – aka The Captain (albeit self-titled), who is similarly gregarious, and Sid (Steve Stamp), who has a proposition for his friends: he works at a warehouse and he has plans to rip-off the shipments that come in.
In The Curse, everyone acts incredibly serious, even though it’s a ridiculous premise. Too many people are roped into what should be afairly straight-forward enterprise, with Sid and The Captain thinking it’s a good idea to map the plan out on a snooker table, in order to avoid a paper trail(!)
Meanwhile, Joey (Abraham Popoola) is a huge, imposing bloke, who plans to pull the job at 5am tomorrow, but what exactly do they find, and where does ‘the curse’ come into it? Ah, you’ll have to watch to find out.
With narration by Camille Coduri, I’m not wholly sold on it after one episode, but then it’s telling a story that’ll play out over the entire series, so I do need to see more.
On the plus side, it has some great ’80s songs like The The’s This Is The Day and Everything Counts by Depeche Mode. It also gives a great look of the ’80s, along with the colour grading, but perhaps three hour-long episodes would’ve been better over six 30-minute ones.
Watching the second episode as it aired, I’m even less sold on this, and I think I’m done with it.
However, kudos to the person who designed the poster (above). It’s epic!
The Curse begins on Channel 4 on Sunday Febuary 6th at 10pm, after which, the entire series will be on All 4.
The series is not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Episode 1 Score: 5/10
Episode 2 Score: 4/10
Director: James De Frond
Producer: Richard Webb
Writers: Tom Davis, James De Frond, Hugo Chegwin, Allan Mustafa, Steve Stamp
Cast:
Natasha: Emer Kenny
Albert: Allan Mustafa
Mick: Tom Davis
Phil: Hugo Chegwin
Sidney: Steve Stamp
Joey: Abraham Popoola
Clive Cornell: Peter Ferdinando
Narrator: Camille Coduri
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.