Review of Mandy

Mandy (2019– )
6/10
You Came and You Gave Without Taking
21 September 2020
I've been enjoying Morgan's sharp characterful grotesquery since the creation of the curiously stupid (or stupidly curious) Philomena Cunk - intended as another fake "dumb general public view" talking head alongside Al Campbell's Barry Sh**peas on Charlie Brooker's evergreen Wipe cultural commentary shows. In this she creates her own surreal (but strangely believable) British figure - a sloppy ignorant buffoon called Mandy Carter.

Unlike Cunk (and the works of Cunk) this is a pure creation by Morgan who writes the entire thing and it's... a mixed bag really but admirably surreal. In the short episodes the plots are fairly perfunctory but the situations and the wildly inspired cast shines through. Watching Mandy interact with people like David Bradley, Sean Lock or Maxine Peake is a pure joy but to spotlight extremely specific people like Natalie Cassidy or the great Mark Silcox (the latter in multiple roles no less) is almost poetry.

Essentially, Mandy is a willfully strange bit of comedy frippery with a who's who of British oddbods. It's not doing anything particularly revolutionary but like Mandy herself it has a curious charm all of its own.
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