Oi, Tinhead!
Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021.
#50 : Ladhood
For some years now, Liam Williams has been blossoming into one of the sharpest observers of niche contemporary culture. In the second season of Ladhood, though, he continued to turn his gaze inward, unpicking moments from his adolescence that were critical to his development. It might just be his best work yet.
Under normal circumstances, there would be no danger of me sitting down and watching something called Ladhood - but this list has been anything but normal circumstances. Even so, he still would only have got me watching the second series - except for the fact that he popped up in Back To Life in a very interesting role, so I'm going back to the beginning.
And it's quite a clever idea - Liam is a mid-thirties(?) mess of a man and he stumbles his way through life wondering quite why he's such a fuck-up. And he then explains why, by presenting episodes from his adolescence with him stood in the background narrating what's going on and explaining his thought processes at the time. And generally despairing at his naive/foolish behaviour, whilst also admitting that he possibly hasn't moved on quite as much as he should have.
And it's all well done indeed - from the title, I was expecting crude "comedy" but it's actually more observant than funny, with humour (and cringing) provided by moments of recognition from times long past (for me, anyway). It's so keenly observed that it is often very uncomfortable or heartbreaking watching - men/boys really are very rubbish at times. I did think it was a little too meta or clever-clever at times, but generally it keeps itself the right side of the line.
Well, it does to start with, at least, because I do have to admit that I didn't finish the second season - as time went on, for me, the humour/intelligence was dialled down and the cringing was dialled up and, well, Liam just became too much of a dick. And an angry dick at that - it just went in a direction I didn't need. It's possible they rescue it before the end of the second or third season, but I'm afraid I'll never know.
It's all acted well enough, but it doesn't exactly require Robert de Niro levels of acting to hang around and act like an idiot. Or maybe it does and they're all budding de Niros. Probably not, but I'm going to name check Oscar Kennedy, Shaun Thomas, Samuel Bottomley and Aqib Khan for doing a good job anyway.
Overall, it's a neat idea and well done to start with but either they ran out of steam or they just made creative choices that I didn't appreciate. It's also not entirely clear who it's aimed at - the entire message is that men are useless and unable to change. I wouldn't be foolish enough to try to argue against this message - but I also don't need to be repeatedly told it either.
And that's it - we've got to the end of the list, which has definitely been a bit of a challenge. Obviously there will be a summary of the year but overall it's been quite a bit of fun.
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