Spiky and heartfelt, Daddy Issues gives odd couple comedy an update

Daddy Issues ★★★★
SBS, Thursday, 9.30pm, and SBS on Demand from Thursday, December 19

The odd couple sitcom gets a spiky and surprisingly heartfelt update in this six-part British comedy where an up-against-it daughter and her newly dumped father are forced by necessity to cobble together a new life – for better or worse, they’re all each other has. Mostly it’s worse. Created by stand-up comic and Brassic writer Danielle Ward, Daddy Issues is an unusually perceptive comedy. It’s sometimes cringeworthy, often amusing, but at all times rooted in the very real circumstances governing its protagonists.

David Morrissey and Aimee Lou Wood star in Daddy Issues.Credit: SBS

The party comes to an end for Stockport hairdresser Gemma (Aimee Lou Wood) when a succession of pregnancy tests keep providing the same answer: positive. Fond of a good time and prone to focusing on her latest boyfriend instead of her shrinking circle of friends, 24-year-old Gemma is suddenly without support. Her mother has gone travelling overseas with her new boyfriend, while Gemma’s sister, Catherine (Sharon Rooney), has been incarcerated for a failed life insurance scheme involving her former boyfriend.

Her only option is her dad, Malcolm (David Morrissey), whose savings have been cleaned out by his domineering wife. A sad sack living in a bedsit that serves as a halfway house for single men, Malcolm has been happily subservient, leaving him short of life skills. “Your mum had a system,” he tells Gemma when she points out that he never turns the lights off. A warehouse clerk, Malcolm probably can’t take care of himself, but when Gemma needs a new flatmate to avoid being evicted he’s the only option.

The idea that a pregnant daughter is stuck raising her father is rich in comic exasperation, and Ward takes it to an absurd degree. When Gemma tells Malcolm that he should never use his jumper to clean up spilt bin juice, he nods with serious intent and then takes off his trousers and uses them instead. But the silliness is always underpinned by the recognition that the safety net for this chaotic family is genuinely thin. If they mess up too much, then dire circumstances loom.

Wood, who made her name in Netflix’s Sex Education, is an immensely likeable actor – her toothy smile is the epitome of endearing. Gemma has some flaws, but she’s fundamentally a sound person who knows that both her and Malcolm need a support network. Casting Morrissey, the veteran dramatic actor who most recently starred as coppers in The Long Shadow and Sherwood, provides a fascinating counterpoint. He gives Malcolm’s daftness a wearying plausibility. He tries and fails, but the laughter doesn’t absolve him.

There’s a great wedge of supporting cast idiocy from Malcolm’s former bedsit neighbour Derek (David Fynn), who is charging with delusional zeal through every incarnation of idiot bro he can find. “Are you my appendix,” he asks a woman during his pick-up artist phase, “because I don’t know what you do, but I feel like I should take you out.” One of the story’s subtle, enduring strands is Gemma realising that she needs to wean her father off Derek’s misogynistic pronouncements.

By the third episode, Daddy Issues is rattling along at a serious clip: Malcolm is dipping his toe into dating apps and Gemma is looking for a reliable partner (in true sitcom fashion she can’t see the obvious candidate right in front of her). Their escapades are a kind of education, whether regarding how the world functions, or simply making sense of other people. A comedy that’s both hilarious and heartfelt is no small achievement.

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