Freezing
- 28 February 2007, BBC 4, 10.30pm
The first in BBC 4's Tight Spot season, Freezing is a 'state of the industry' comedy of concern only to the people who commissioned it
Matt (Hugh Bonneville) is a publisher, gormlessly searching for the book world's Next Big Thing in an attempt to go freelance.
His wife Elizabeth (Oscar nominee Elizabeth McGovern in a nicely postmodern bit of casting) is a once-successful actress also struggling to find work, this time in the TV industry. Together they start on uncertain careers as media freelancers.
It's a little unfair to compare a new comedy to the best in the business. However, the similarity in subject matter leaves me no choice but to draw comparisons with Gervais and Merchant's Extras and find Freezing severely wanting.
At least Gervais and Merchant had the decency to realise that the success of their series relied on ridiculing the media world to within an inch of its self-regarding life. In comparison, Freezing writer James Wood's gentle "aren't I naughty?" jibes (the cocksure agent, the two-faced commissioning editor) seem designed to flatter (rather than flatten) those that they're aimed at.
Again unlike Extras, Wood's script lacks the strength to withstand
the weight of the acting talent enlisted. The all-star cast (including pointless
call-a-favour cameos from Richard E. Grant and Alan Yentob) stomp all over
the fragile plotline, making heavy work of what is really little more than
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps for the upper middle
classes.
Henry Barnes
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