The first series of Things You Should Have Done aired on BBC Three in early 2024, a dry and quirky comedy about a recently bereaved “stay at home daughter” from middle England. It was the brainchild of Lucia Keskin, better known online as Chi with a C, and the show marked the then 23-year-old’s transfer from internet comic (her repertoire ranged from parodies of American Horror Story to impressions of Gemma Collins) to TV star. It also came with the co-sign of Roughcut, the production company behind People Just Do Nothing and Stath Lets Flats, helmed by The Office producer Ash Atalla.
The premise was almost unbearably sad (inept young girl loses her parents in a horrifying car crash and has to navigate life without them, as per a list they left for her), but the end product was zany rather than gloomy. An episode on getting a job saw Chi (Keskin) decamp to a care home, embracing an early retirement in a bid to avoid employment at all, while the chapter devoted to learning to cook ended with two family members being admitted to hospital. The tension between Chi and her bitter aunt Karen (Selin Hizli) was a constant, complete with insults about Chi’s “fat ham hock legs”. Not one but two characters spat into a bowl of pancake mix and no one so much as flinched. And there was a truly unforgettable rendition of Pure and Simple by Popstars winners Hear’Say. The characters tended towards their own nonsensical idiolect and failed to understand the most basic of concepts (see: Chi thinking a breast screening was some kind of peep show), giving the programme more than a dash of Stath-like incompetence. Frequent ghostly appearances by Chi’s dead parents added a sadcom touch, although – wisely – it was never enough to feel truly devastating.
