Just over a week ago, Russell T Davies posted about a new show on his Instagram account. “This is FUNNY. And FILTHY,” he wrote. “Oh my God, it’s filthy, the very last line made me laugh so much, I rewound it five times. I’ve only seen one episode, and it’s HILARIOUS.” The show was a new ITVX sitcom called G’Wed, about a bunch of schoolkids in Wirral and, good lord, it needed Davies’s attention.
Until his post, there had been a dearth of publicity for the show: 160 words in the Observer, a slightly negative write-up in Catholic weekly the Tablet, a “Wirral locations that appear in new ITVX scouse comedy” listicle in the Wirral Globe, and that’s about it. And, sure, Davies’s praise might not be completely devoid of context (always worth pointing out that his series Nolly was an important early project for ITVX), but at the very least it got eyeballs on the show.
This is no bad thing. Because, while it doesn’t quite live up to the Davies’s firework display, G’wed turns out to be pretty good indeed. The writing is sharp, the young cast is as energetic as any I’ve seen and, when it snaps into focus, it manages to be one of those increasingly rare beasts: a heartfelt show about class that never forgets it’s a sitcom, rather than a nebulous comedy-drama.
Filmed around the Beechwood Estate in Birkenhead, G’wed owes a lot to shows that have come before it. In its large ensemble cast it shares a core DNA with Derry Girls, and its first episode cannot help but invite comparisons to The Inbetweeners. Posh Muppet, the pilot episode, concerns the arrival of Christopher (Jake Kenny-Byrne), a well-spoken young man sent to a rough and ready comprehensive school. As premises go, it’s one cry of “briefcase wanker” away from a lawsuit, but G’Wed makes itself distinctive in more subtle ways. Unlike The Inbetweeners, which was told from the viewpoint of the new boy, here the main character is Reece (Dylan Thomas Smith), a chancer who agrees to look after the newcomer to avoid punishment at school.
Also, unlike The Inbetweeners, G’wed doesn’t exclusively star straight white actors. Some characters are Muslim, one is gay, and it’s telling that the show noticeably improves when it shifts its gaze to these supporting characters. The third episode, for example, revolves around a love affair between Ted (the gay kid) and a handsome, overconfident sixth-former. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in years to come, the writer and production staff pinpoint this as the moment everything came together. It is, as Davies rightly noted, unbelievably filthy – there’s a scene in which two kids discuss the best bodily orifice to eat a chicken nugget out of – but it also packs a walloping emotional punch. It is a tough balance to hit but, if G’Wed can figure out how to do this sort of thing consistently, it could run and run.
A quick note on this subject, though. For some weird reason, this diversity extends only to the male cast. The main female characters are not only straight and white, but uniformly blond, and look so alike that it took me half the series to tell them apart. A genuinely bizarre blind spot.
But G’Wed manages to be very smart about class. Not only does it avoid the pitfalls that have run plenty of other shows aground – the houses have rooms that are the size of normal rooms, rather that sprawling sets – but it makes a point of deliberately heading the viewer off at the pass. In the second episode, one character begins to weep about having no money and how it forced her family into a life of crime (which is something you would almost certainly see in a Wirral-set sitcom made by a lesser talent), before revealing that she had baked up the story as a wind-up. It’s the sort of detail you tend to get when someone makes a television series about the place they are from, in the place they are from, with people from the place they are from. If nothing else, it is an incredibly strong argument for not making everything in London.
Whether any more episodes of G’Wed get made is anyone’s guess. So far, the coverage it has received – especially at a time when sitcoms are on their knees – doesn’t fill you with confidence. But it starts solidly and every episode is a clear improvement on the last. A quick recommission and we might have a classic on our hands.
G’Wed is available on ITVX
