I had no idea that the penis-shaped goods industry was so expansive. You can get penis straws, penis piñatas, penis bunting, penis noses. You can even get penis spears, which work particularly well when waved at a sinister gang of marauding pilates teachers. And that’s only the start of the chaos in Henpocalypse! (Tuesday 15 August, 10pm, BBC Two), where it’s Zara’s hen do and, unfortunately, also the end of the world.
I’m sure there is a joke in here, about Henpocalypse! being a tautology or something like that – who among us hasn’t wondered if the sudden end of civilisation might be preferable to another drunken game involving penis-shaped penne – but this lively new comedy takes it to its logical conclusion and drops its bridal party right into the middle of a deadly viral outbreak. Written by Caroline Moran (Raised By Wolves/Hullraisers), it follows a group of women from Birmingham into the Welsh countryside, where they’ve rented a cottage and a pink 4x4 for a weekend of “penis coladas”, stripping policemen and dancing to Tom Jones. I always wondered if the end of days would unravel to a soundtrack of Sex Bomb.
As Zara (We Are Lady Parts’ Lucie Shorthouse) parties with her mum Bern (Elizabeth Berrington), best friend and chief bridesmaid Shelly (Callie Cooke), unlucky cousin Jen (Kate O’Flynn) and budget beautician/conspiracy theorist Veena (Lauren O’Rourke), the outside world is contending with a global outbreak of a deadly new virus, crab measles, to which men are particularly vulnerable. Within days, the electricity’s gone off, they’re burning furniture, rationing what’s left of the “choccie cock box” and snorting instant coffee granules.
It’s rude, crude and very funny, chucking us in weeks after the worst has happened, as the “I Do Crew” are adjusting to life in the new world. “All the fellas have carked it,” says Bern, who has big Marsha-from-Spaced energy. All the fellas, that is, except the policeman stripper, Drew (Ben McGregor), whom they’ve decided to keep prisoner in a bedroom, for reasons that are not entirely clear, other than that they think he’d make a run for it if he weren’t chained to the radiator. But this isn’t the sort of show that needs you to look too hard at the plot. It’s probably better if you don’t, and instead marvel at the fact he’s kept his gold hotpants clean for as long as he has.
It’s more about the details, which are fantastically daft and surreal. Veena’s suspicions of Mark Zuckerberg and various international conspiracies puts her in the centre of a Venn diagram of suspicion and survivalism, and soon, she’s out in Eryri/Snowdonia hunting meat for their sustenance, though she can only seem to nab owls. “Could you not pluck the noble lord of the trees while I’m snorting my breakfast please?” says Shelly, as she hovers over the Maxwell House.
Hapless cousin Jen, meanwhile, has been consigned to quarantine, following a familiar and usually very minor fashion-related injury that has festered into something severe, and “maybe a touch more Savlon” isn’t going to fix it. Luckily, she’s got her homemade EastEnders paper dolls to keep her company, and later in the series, a former landlord of the Queen Vic turns up. Danny Dyer has done movies, soaps, travel shows, Pinter and The Wall, but even in a career as broad as his, it’s fair to say that he might be exploring new territory with this performance.
The issues these women had before the apocalypse are not dismissed in the name of survival, but carried over into the end times. “How dare you put my wedding into perspective?” says Zara, when it’s suggested that the collapse of civilisation might do just that. Zara’s unreliable fiance Gary is supposed to be meeting up with them, and though it’s pretty likely the crab measles have got him, she’s refusing to leave the cottage until he arrives. Bern turns to desperate measures to keep her vape going. Shelly’s paid for everything upfront and still can’t shake the notion that she’s going to end up losing her deposit. And while Zara seems like the archetypal bridezilla, bullying Shelly into cowering submission, there’s a backstory about their long friendship and the state it’s currently in that suggests a more complicated power dynamic.
It’s gruesome, too, with a touch of comedy-horror that creeps in more as the series goes on, and it’s not for the faint-hearted, either visually or gag-wise. This is big, robust comedy, and there really are penises everywhere. Acockalypse now!
• This article was amended on 14 August 2023. An earlier version said that Henpocalypse! was on Tuesday 14 August; that should have said Tuesday 15 August.
