I don't know how many of you watch the BBC Manchester series Ideal starring Johnny Vegas as a really really really downmarket weed and hash dealer in Salford, England. Here in the States the show airs on IFC and we're in the fourth series of the show (for you UK readers who have seen all of series five please don't leave spoilers in the comments, I hate that).
If you're not watching, you should. It is the best example of how you can produce fun, interesting and sometimes even moving television on a budget much lower than the US networks.
Written by Graham Duff (left), who also co-stars as Brian, Ideal all takes place in the apartment building of the dealer in question, Moz (Vegas). The show never strays from Moz's place, the hallway outside and the two apartments on either side.
One is inhabited by Judith (Joanna Neary, Skins and Notting Hill) who started out a necrophiliac but is currently living and sleeping with Cartoon Head, the most identifiable of the characters ... because he has the head of a cartoon mouse. Seriously. Here's a clip, click this.
The other apartment is occupied by Fist, and although I know a little too much about him already from researching this post (DAMN, the spoilers you run into when another country has seen stuff before you, DAMN!) I've watched to the point that Fist has made the acquaintance of Kim and Miko, friends of Yasuko, who was a friend Moz's ex Nikki from a trip to Thailand where they had a three-way.
(Yes, it's convulted and the cast is huge, but it all works. Duff weaves all these characters into a lovely cloth.)
And there's Nikki (Nicola Reynolds, right) who I just hate. Not the actress, the character. Granted I have a certain affinity for Moz because he's a man of size and we need to stick together (though frankly I don't quite qualify as a man of size as much as I used to but old allegiances die hard) but Nikki is a bitch, a liar and a serial philanderer.
She's been sleeping with Moz's policemen pal PC (character's birth name is Phil Collins, wouldn't you go by initials?) since the beginning of the series. During Moz's birthday party she has sex with PC, Moz and DJ Kuldip who got her pregnant.
She left Moz to believe that the kid was his up until the birth, when it was obvious that the kid was Kuldip's. And she had a lesbian relationship with Sangita. Man, I hate Nikki.
Not that Moz is a catch. Fat, high and tethered to your TV does get you ... hey, wait a minute, am I describing myself in my college days? Well, yeah, but I digress. Moz is no prize package, he's hit on almost every single woman who's entered his place to buy weed or hash (which, btw comes from PC who makes regular trips to the evidence locker at work to supply Moz with inventory.
The inventory doesn't go too quickly, what with everyone buying as little as possible. I said Moz was really really really downmarket. The aforementioned Brian stops by regularly with some young guy he's dating (except for the one time the guy was older, everyone needs to switch it up a bit) and is the reason I've started using the word scrummy here on the blog.
And there's Moz's most upmarket clients, two local kids played by Primeval's Andrew Lee Potts and Tim Fallows, who are in a bands called Silicon Valets. Get it? It's like Silicon Valley without an L and adding a T, like parking your car. And they explain it to everyone they meet, because ... well, they have to.
Click over the jumperoo for more of this post ... and clips. Non-spoilery clips for the US audience.
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