I knew The Flatshare (Paramount+) was going to be unrealistic when, in the opening scenes, Tiffany moves into her new rented flat and almost immediately bangs a picture hook into the wall. This, I thought, is a woman who has never had to deal with an estate agent’s punitive charges. The flat turns out not to be Tiffany’s, at least not entirely: this is an adaptation of the 2019 novel by Beth O’Leary, and follows an untraditional flatsharing arrangement. Tiffany has the flat from 8pm to 8am and at weekends; she has entered into an agreement with Leon, a night nurse trying to earn extra money for what obviously turns out to be extremely big-hearted reasons, who gets his own flat from 8am to 8pm, and stays with his annoying girlfriend at weekends.
Tiffany immediately starts leaving her pesky lady things everywhere: candles, floral cushions and herbal teabags. After a frosty start and some misunderstandings about tidiness, etiquette and whether you should move into another person’s flat and hang a huge vagina painting on the wall, Tiffany and Leon begin to communicate flirtatiously, via Post-it notes. It’s basically Love Is Blind, without the pressure to get married, but with the pressure of Leon’s brother Richie being imprisoned for an armed robbery he didn’t commit and Tiffany somehow managing to get involved in that, while also quibbling over the quality of the shared loo roll.
