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Louise Thomas
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Rent costs are eye-watering and the housing market’s a joke. It’s no wonder that twentysomethings are heading back to their family homes in droves. But Gemma, the 24-year-old protagonist of BBC Three’s comedy Daddy Issues, decides to turn that solution on its head – by inviting her newly divorced dad Malcolm (David Morrissey) to move into her Stockport flat.
Splitting the rent isn’t her only motivation, though. Gemma (played by Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood) has just learned that she is pregnant, after a hook-up in a plane bathroom with a fellow passenger. Her mum (Susan Lynch) has absconded with her and Malcolm’s life savings and is living it up around Europe. Her sister Cat (Sharon Rooney) is in prison after trying to bump off her fiancé in order to get a life insurance payout (“A legitimate business decision”, she tells Gemma during one jail visit). She has almost no friends: when a midwife asks her to name the women in her support network, she just recites the members of Girls Aloud.
Kind but useless Malcolm, who struggles to reheat his dinner in a microwave and believes that jacket potatoes come “covered in leather”, is pretty much all that Gemma has. And even her relatively modest flat is a significant upgrade to his living situation in episode one. He initially has the dubious pleasure of sharing a squalid bedsit with Derek (scene-stealer David Fynn), a younger guy whose “recently divorced” energy is even more blatant, and far more toxic, than Malcolm’s. His haphazard attempts to flirt with and/or disparage Gemma (who refers to Derek as her father’s “emotional support d***head”) are a frequent source of laughs. “Are you wearing Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker?” is one of his most tragic opening gambits.
The show follows the father-daughter pair as they face the demands of impending (grand)parenthood, from antenatal classes headed up by a terrifying woman who doesn’t believe in pain relief to reconnecting with their extended family. At first, Gemma and Malcolm appear to be drawn in broad strokes: the useless dad who can barely use a washing machine and the chaotic party girl. But as the series goes on, their characters seem to gain real nuance and heart as their bond deepens. There’s also an appealing oddball silliness to screenwriter Danielle Ward’s scripts – like a set piece involving a poorly conceived Taken-themed escape room – that nicely counterbalances the emotional heft of the main storyline.
Sex Education fans will already be well acquainted with Wood’s comic timing, which is also put to good use here, with no-nonsense, sometimes deadpan delivery only making Gemma’s punchlines more memorable. But Wood can also be wonderfully expressive and captures her character’s vulnerable side too. Morrissey, meanwhile, has recently played careworn detectives on a handful of heavy-going dramas such as Sherwood and The Long Shadow, so it’s a treat to see him in comedy mode, leaning into Malcolm’s haplessness but also imbuing him with a real sweetness. Taj Atwal is another standout as Cherry, a sharp-tongued former classmate of Gemma (who re-enters her life after the Girls Aloud moment makes her realise that she really, really needs friends of her own age).
Thanks to its winning central duo, Daddy Issues feels like a warm hug of a show, but with just enough edge to keep you on your toes. And there’s plenty of material left to explore; pregnancy is one thing, but how will Gemma and Malcolm cope when the baby actually arrives? Hopefully it’s just getting started.
