Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Romesh Ranganathan, Katherine Ryan, Johnny Vegas, Harrie Hayes, Phaldut Sharma, Neil D’Souza, Julie Legrand, Jordan Coulson, Mensah Bediako, Jackie Morrison, Stephen Samson, Jerry-Jane Pears, Chris Aukett, Charlie Brook, Alwyne Taylor, Charles Baker, Martin Buchanan, Mara Allen, Billy Clements, Alexandr Delamere, Tom Davis, Lila Garrad, Jules Brown, Adam Young, Melissa Phillips, David Bresnahan, Farshid Rokey, Steven Jeram, Simon DeSilva, Chris Robb, Lindsay Townley.
What could be the most desired event in your life you could make happen without stepping across a moral line.
For many even the thought of fulfilling happiness in one area of their existence would mean going into debt, their financial wellbeing shredded, never perhaps to recover. Debt when it is a car seems frivolous, reckless, and to incur by going to University, when it should be free across the board, is government indenture by any other name, but for a home, for a family, then debt is the acceptable face of supply and demand; it may not be right, even ethical, but even charging people to become parents is deemed reasonable…as long as the prospective parents can pay for the treatment.
To cross the line of personal moral bankruptcy is one shrouded in heavy heart, but as Romantic Getaway, written and created by Benjamin Green and Romesh Ranganathan, with additional support by Sarah Morgan and Elaine Gracie, aptly shows, that line is often blurred, ambiguous, often a deceit of our own making, and when it comes down to you holding your dream and being able to raise a much needed child of your own, or having your boss have another bottle of champagne for breakfast as they while away the hours inside a local strip club, then that line suddenly doesn’t exist anymore.
The issue is how to make such a plot funny and relevant at the same time; how to bring it to the screen in such a way that you have empathy for the protagonists as they break the law for the benefit of their souls and not for the chance to add to the burden brought forth by rampant capitalism.
The fine line between crass and idealism can be vapour thin, but as Deacon and Allison traverse the road to parenthood via IVF and stolen fortunes, there is something endearing about their journey, the willingness to go beyond the acceptable and embrace further chaos whilst all around them fights their cause or sees their grand magnified.
For Romesh Ranganathan and Katherine Ryan this is a comedy that brings together two considered heavyweights of modern television comedy, but it is to the pathos, the fear, the rejection, the damage that both characters have been dealing with that sees the pair step out with a comfortable persuasion to the narrative, is on screen and given additional support from Johnny Vegas as their boss, and Phaldut Sharma as the menacing and corruptible business owner Kethan.
A story very much of its parts, symbolic of its place in modern society where we place profit even on the head of the unborn and as yet still to be conceived, where robbery is considered fair game when it comes to the purchasing power that comes from dictating misery by those who can play the system. A series which offers food for thought, enjoyable without being demonstrative.
Ian D. Hall