Looking for the holy grail of TV dramedy? This is as close as you’ll get

AM I BEING UNREASONABLE? ★★★★

The seamless interweaving of comedy and drama is the holy grail of many a TV writer, but few achieve this trickiest of balancing acts. With Am I Being Unreasonable? creators and stars Daisy May Cooper and Selin Hizli have come much closer than most.

Am I Being Unreasonable? is the story of two friends, Nic (Cooper) and Jen (Hizli). In season one, the pair met and bonded over mutual frustrations with motherhood, domestic life and suburban ennui, but their friendship was complicated by the fact both women possessed dark pasts, problematic secrets and motivations that would take a long time to be properly revealed.

Daisy May Cooper is astonishing as Nic in the dramedy Am I Being Unreasonable?Credit:

Even as Nic bemoaned her stultifying life – trapped in a dull marriage and mired in suburban drudgery – and even as Jen offered her sympathy, both women were hiding things that would turn out to have catastrophic consequences.

As season two dawns, all hell has broken loose. At a memorial service for Nic’s brother-in-law Alex, it has been revealed Nic had been having an affair with the deceased, much to the shock and fury of Nic’s husband Dan and Alex’s partner Suzie. But even as she flees the scene, Nic is haunted not just by the misdeeds that have come to light but an even bigger secret: the circumstances of Alex’s death and her part in it.

Cooper’s comic chops have been well-known to connoisseurs for some time, thanks to shows such as This Country, Avenue 5 and The Witchfinder. Here she sculpts her masterpiece, both as a writer and as an actor, in creating the character of Nic: a frustrated and frustrating woman whose misfortunes are mostly self-inflicted.

Nic (Daisy May Cooper) and Ollie (Lenny Rush) in Am I Being Unreasonable?

However, Nic’s desperation, loneliness and overwhelming guilt are so profoundly human and relatable – even if we all hope we would never go so far in a quest for a more exciting life ourselves – that it’s easy to identify with the wrenching whirl of emotions she suffers through. She’s carrying a heavy burden – the strain is written all over Cooper’s face and heard in her voice – and maybe she deserves it, but Nic’s pain is no less palpable for that.

As Jen, Hizli has a less showy, more thankless role – it’s understated and mysterious, carrying desperation of her own but also hiding depths that intrigue and tease. Her character is a key part of the show’s appeal: the mystery of what is truly going on, not to mention how it’s going to shake out.

Special mention must be made, too, of Lenny Rush, who plays Nic’s disabled teenage son Ollie. In a performance of extraordinary sensitivity and complexity, Rush manages to be the show’s moral centre and the engine of much of its comedy, deftly moving between razor-sharp comic timing and heart-rending dramatic performance.

In this, Rush is embodying the show as a whole – suspense mingled with heartbreak and gut-busting mirth, and none of it ever seems unnatural. Somehow, Am I Being Unreasonable? can be a thriller, relationship drama, classic sitcom and an absurdist artwork, with each element fitting perfectly, as if by magic.

When Nic’s anxieties take the form of wild, surreal flights of fancy, you might think it would jar, especially when the surrounding scenes are utterly grounded episodes of raw, real human feeling. But the writing of Cooper and Hizli – tight and pointed while still spreading itself across different styles and moods – is so good that it all works.

What is the message of Am I Being Unreasonable? In its flawed, morally dubious characters, maybe there is none. Instead, it’s up to each of us to watch these people, weigh their actions and decide for ourselves what is forgivable.

Perhaps the message is simply that life, as painful and ridiculous and downright silly as it is, just doesn’t stop. In moments of greatest crisis, the strangeness of the world persists, and laughter and misery are, inevitably, closest of friends.

Am I Being Unreasonable? premieres on SBS Viceland on March 5, at 10.10pm, and streams on SBS on Demand.

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