TV Blog: Dappers
“From the writer that brought you Mamma Mia!” – hardly words to endear a programme to me. Still, regardless of my feelings towards embarrassing middle-aged Abba sing-a-longs, the sheer size of the play/movie’s success means any new work from Catherine Johnson is worth taking note of. Add to that her strong pedigree of UK TV drama credits (including Love in the 21st Century and Linda Green), and I approached her new project Dappers (BBC Three) with a degree of open mindedness.
The second in this year’s season of BBC pilots, Dappers is a Bristol set drama about two young mums on benefits trying to make ends meet via any scheme they can think of. “You’re like Del Boy and Rodders in thongs!” observes one character midway through and this is certainly the intention; to make a female Only Fools and Horses with a smattering of Shameless. It’s just a shame that it so completely misfires.
The two leads are both strong with Ty Glaser and the ever good Lenora Crichlow putting in two nice performances but what begins as a decent concept soon devolves into sub-Chucklevison territory when the girl’s attempt to run a kennel inevitably results in “hilarious” antics involving runaway dogs and snooty neighbours. So childish is the style and the humour that it felt like watching a particularly foul mouthed episode of Paul and Barry’s antics, except less funny, set in Bristol and with lower production values. Much lower production values.
A decent premise wasted on a clunking script with a seriously misjudged tone, Dappers illustrates that it takes more than a big name writer to produce a decent show. If you’re desperate to see it, Dappers is online here.