The Sympathizer Sky Atlantic
My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom Channel 4 | | All 4
My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom (The Actual Sitcom) Channel 4 | All 4
Eric Netflix
Camden Disney+
Sometimes television has to bare its teeth and remind you that it’s a medium capable of anything. The Sympathizer (Sky Atlantic) is one such show. Created by Park Chan-wook (writer-director of films including Decision to Leave and The Handmaiden) and Don McKellar (director and writer of Last Night), it’s a seven-part adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer-prize winning satirical novel set in the aftermath of the Vietnam war.
Robert Downey Jr, fresh from his Oscar-winning Oppenheimer turn, stars in several roles. Hoa Xuande plays the nameless Captain, a South Vietnamese police operative (half-French, with an unknown father, he’s derided as a “half-breed”). At the end of the war, as Saigon falls, the Captain and his friend Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan) escape on a plane to the US with their general (Toan Le). However, the Captain is a double agent, spying for the Viet Cong for another friend (Duy Nguyen).
The central narrative springs from the Captain’s confession in a re-education camp (“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man with two faces”). A cracking cast includes Sandra Oh as a droll love interest. I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to Downey Jr’s assorted roles – it sounded like prosthetic-laden, scenery-chewing folly. However, while two of his characters (a professor and a congressman) verge on pointless, he’s excellent as the Captain’s CIA handler (all tufty Art Garfunkel hair and smiling menace). He’s better still as an erratic, Francis Ford Coppola-alike director making an Apocalypse Now-esque film, in scenes that mercilessly skewer Hollywood/western bias (David Duchovny plays a method bore).
At times, The Sympathizer feels like a new spin on Catch-22: a scathing takedown of the absurdities of war, further infused with guilt, identity, duality, ideology, betrayal and ghosts. With a star-making turn for Xuande (charismatic, unknowable, barely off the screen), it’s an audacious, off-kilter, bleakly comic masterpiece.
It doesn’t seem outlandish to suggest that there’s now a post-Baby Reindeer landscape: the hit Netflix stalking drama sparked a debate on how to deal with trauma on screen. Now there’s My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom, from comedian Mark O’Sullivan. It’s a documentary guide through his decision to make My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom (The Actual Sitcom), an 18-minute sitcom-parody streamed by Channel 4 immediately afterwards.
The introductory documentary is a harrowing tale of a childhood destroyed. O’Sullivan was first abused at the age of 12 by a member of his extended family. In his 30s, he got his abuser convicted. Talking to others, including O’Sullivan’s wife, Jenny, and his usual writing partner, Mike Chapman, he recalls the abuse (“He forced me to be a sexual object”), the strain of the court case, and how some family members didn’t believe him.
Broadcaster and fellow abuse survivor Iain Lee is also interviewed. Numbed himself (“20 years of antidepressants”), O’Sullivan expresses envy at Lee’s rage at his own abusers (“Those fucking cunts who did it…”). Meanwhile, Lee is concerned that O’Sullivan’s sitcom project could get him unjustly cancelled.
I’m not sure about that. Aided by a small cast (Rufus Jones, Cariad Lloyd, Ellie Taylor), the sitcom reflects the TV mores of O’Sullivan’s youth (banal family setup; canned laughter), but with nightmarish shadows, culminating in the courtroom (“I was diddled, I was fiddled, I got paedo-ed, nonced”). While a giant teddy bear (Sam Underwood) represents the abuser, O’Sullivan plays himself at 12 (he explains in the documentary that he didn’t want to put a child actor through it).
It’s disturbing, sure, but it’s supposed to be. Along with the documentary, it gives valuable insights into predators, how emotional scar tissue lasts a lifetime, and how comedy can combat darkness.
I come to the new Netflix series Eric as a big admirer of the people behind it: creator-writer Abi Morgan’s work includes The Hour and The Iron Lady. Lucy Forbes was the director of This Is Going to Hurt and In My Skin.
At first, Eric (available now in full) is predictably brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Vincent, a gifted but volatile puppeteer in grimy 1980s New York who’s obsessed with his show (a Sesame Street deal called Good Day Sunshine that has nose-diving ratings). One day, Vincent’s unhappy nine-year-old son, Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe), goes missing. Not long after (spoiler alert), Eric, a giant, fuzzy, foul-mouthed puppet (a manifestation of Edgar’s drawing), appears to Vincent: “Let’s go find your fucking son.”
It’s Cumberbatch’s best performance since Patrick Melrose. As obnoxious as Vincent is, he’s damaged and believable. Gaby Hoffmann plays his wife, and their scenes together, in a collapsing marriage, are authentically shattering. The script is superb; the atmosphere nail-biting. I even like Eric (a fusion of Sulley from Monsters Inc. and Seth McFarlane’s profanity-spraying Ted, with cultural echoes of Donnie Darko). Elsewhere, McKinley Belcher III beautifully portrays a closeted gay detective with a dying lover, while New York is scratchy, gritty, Scorsese-like, as the search for Edgar begins.
Unfortunately, it all implodes into a muddled thematic sinkhole (numerous suspects, city hall corruption, paedophile rings, homeless communities). Worse, it starts drowning in Spielberg-level schmaltz and clunky learning moments. Whatever Eric the puppet represents (Vincent’s psychosis? His conscience?), it’s unexamined here: Eric just lumbers around after Vincent like a malevolent, oversize pyjama case. Though far from a disaster (the first two episodes alone are better than most thrillers), I was expecting more.
Camden is the seven-part Disney+ docuseries about north London’s cultural heartland, from Asif Kapadia (director of Senna and Amy). It doesn’t want for interviewees: Noel Gallagher, Chris Martin, Jazzie B, Pete Doherty, Carl Barât, Little Simz, Nile Rodgers and many more).
However, the talking heads all seem to have been asked to mainly talk about themselves, resulting in much tedious self-aggrandising that’s often only spuriously connected to Camden. Only Madness’s Suggs makes an interesting point about the area’s Irish origins. There’s also far too much of executive producer and Camden alumnus Dua Lipa sashaying around, talking about herself, babbling counterculture banalities.
Gallagher aside, it’s a Britpop-free zone, and while it bangs on about hallowed music venues and clubs, there’s barely any indie, punk or goth. When it seems to start insinuating that Camden invented acid house culture, I burst out laughing. Who researched this? Too often, Camden feels part artist promo, part steaming mess.
Star ratings (out of five)
The Sympathizer ★★★★★
My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom Channel 4/My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom (The Actual Sitcom) ★★★★
Eric ★★★
Camden ★★
What else I’m watching
We Are Lady Parts
(Channel 4)
They’re back! The second series of Nida Manzoor’s trailblazing comedy about a female Muslim punk band. As funny and riotous as ever, this time they’ve got rivals.
The Outlaws
(BBC One)
It’s a welcome return for the Bristol-set crime caper, starring and co-created by Stephen Merchant, about a community service group who become bungling felons. Fans of Claes Bang’s wicked drug lord should be delighted – he’s after them again.
D-Day 80: We Were There
(BBC Two)
A poignant historic documentary marking the imminent 80th anniversary of the D-day Normandy landings. Veterans, some more than 100 years old, give first-hand accounts.
