When HBO announces a new show, you sit up and pay attention, and that rule frankly applies regardless of genre. As it happens, when Larry David announces a new comedy project, a very similar logic should be applied, which makes for quite a double whammy when it comes to Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness.
David famously ended his long-running show Curb Your Enthusiasm a couple of years back, but the industry rumour always seemed to be that he'd be back before too long – as had happened before a few times. Now that's come true, but his new show does look pretty different, as confirmed by its first trailer.
This is more of a sketch comedy approach, as opposed to a painfully awkward scripted series, and it sees David skipping through history examining what it might be like if his famously curmudgeonly characteristics were dropped into some of the most important and consequential moments in the long past of the USA.
That's a funny concept, and it's made funnier by the fact that the show is from the production company founded by the actual Obamas – in some ways the whole thing might be an implicit middle finger to the current presidential administration. Either way, the trailer makes it clear that we'll get a look at plenty of different time periods through the show's seven episode run.
There are looks at World War I and the experience of US troops in the trenches; the American Revolution; the invention of flight; and even peasant existence long before that – all with David mugging his way through scenes as a suspiciously modern-minded grouch. The joy, of course, will be in seeing how his grumpiness changes the vibes of scenes we know so well from other movies and show.
Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness will hit HBO Max on 26 June, so it's around a week away at this stage – if you're a comedy fan or a closet history nut then this is likely to be a real treat.
