“You won’t believe this, but I often get branded as camp,” Alan Carr says not long into Changing Ends, a sitcom about his formative years.
He also gets called other, far ruder, things in the ITVX series, but the comedian and (in this case) narrator is always self-deprecating in his fullness of himself. Anyone who has seen or heard Carr for any longer than five seconds might suspect how he would probably rub up against his grumpy football manager father in eighties Northampton. Problems fitting in? Issues being himself? The ultimate ability, thanks to the support of those who believed in him, to find himself and become one of the country’s most ubiquitous performers? Yes, it’s all here. But in case you had any doubts, here is the full account anyway over six episodes.
The Dave Lambert-directed series begins with Carr - in his 46-year-old, current incarnation- appearing beyond the fourth wall alongside his teenage self like the ghost of middle England/light entertainment future. “Has anyone actually checked it was a decade, because it felt a lot longer,” he says, to put on record that these were not more innocent times - especially for a boy growing up gay when we even thought even George Michael was straight. “And don’t get me started on the mid-eighties when puberty came along, punched me in the face, left me with the eyesight of a mole and the voice of an elderly lady,” he continues, “And they said I’d grow into the teeth”.
It’s unclear how long it took for Carr to begin to mock his own distinguishing features, but he takes full advantage here. Unlike the hapless Northampton Town FC, managed by Carr’s dad Graham, this is a show that converts all its chances to score when it comes to parodying its subject’s campy insecurities.
Only three episodes were available for press viewing but it is enough to get a feel that the jokes at Alan’s expense can be repetitive, as can the never ending reminder that it really is the eighties (I’ll accept people drove Austin Montegos and wore mullets, but did Blue Monday really play at every social gathering of any description?) The structure of each episode also plays out in a similar pattern. Carr’s mother Christine (Nancy Sullivan) fights with neighbour Angela (Gabby Best), Graham (Shaun Dooley) rages against his bottom-of-the-table players, Alan’s younger self (Oliver Savell) runs away from bullies to find solace in the drama studio or conversations with dinner ladies. It’s not that the secondary characters could benefit from more screen time, but perhaps from being put in different situations to better explore their relationships with Alan.
Savell, who has previously appeared in Kenneth Brannagh’s Belfast, is a strong presence to carry the series. His expressions are enough to convey the familiar horror of communal showers after PE, the pain of being forced to run cross country and, eventually, the joy of finding someone like-minded, in his acting teacher (Cariad Lloyd). But the script written by Carr himself, alongside Simon Carlyle, has inserted cutting one-liners into the dialogue of a timid young lad who is otherwise afraid to hold anybody’s gaze. His snappy put-downs appear as out of place to a viewer as his pink scarf and earmuffs must have done on a Midlands housing estate.
The fact that Alan is not a natural at drama is a relief from any further coming-of-age cliche. And, while bullying is never nice, one wonders if any watershed or over-zealous desire for this to have a Feel Good Factor has led to its scale being toned down from threatening to pantomime. Alan’s never-in-doubt sexuality is hinted at with his love of Prince and a first kiss gone wrong (another classic of the genre) but perhaps only fully unveiled later on.
The grown-up Carr’s presence is not really necessary for the show to work but it is fun to have him along for the ride. And perhaps unlike its subject, the running time is thankfully not over the top at a manageable half hour. If you’ve seen the superior Toast, the story of Nigel Slater, or read Robert Webb’s How Not to Be a Boy, Changing Ends will not be anything new. Fans of Carr Jr will lap it up, though, and while it’s neither as daring as Sex Education or as original as The Wonder Years, it probably beats an afternoon of watching a Northampton Town side managed by his dad.
