TV review: Chivalry has plenty life... and wit, and chemistry
Tatiana (Aisling Bea) in Chivalry.
(Channel 4 and All 4 App) isn't perfect.
For example, Steve Coogan’s movie producer character, Cameron, has a few gags that feel out of tune. (The one where he says 'Francis Bacon' to his young lover and she thinks he said ‘France is Bacon’ should never have made it past first draft.)
But rather than ruin the show, it just puts a jagged edge on proceedings as Steve Coogan’s Cameron butts heads with indie director Bobby, played by the co-writer Sarah Solemani. She’s woke and comfortable in the post #Metoo world — he’s lost, as if they decided to let Jeremy Clarkson produce blockbuster movies in Hollywood.
It works perfectly. There is chemistry between them — we’re just not sure if it’s sexual. (Neither are they and that just adds to it.)
Better still, the writing in this six-parter will have you guessing what happens next. What starts out as a buzzy rom-com feel lurches in a different direction when Bobby reveals she was raped by a friend of Cameron and studio head, Fraser. This jolts Cameron into displays of actual humanity as his character comes to life, something beyond a vessel for gags about woke culture.
So now we sit back and wait for Cameron and Bobby to unite forces and strike a blow against the Hollywood studio system by making her indie movie passion project, which has something to do with menstruation and Iran.
It doesn’t happen. The plot thickens again after Bobby ditches her woke working-mom feminist credentials and opts to direct a blockbuster franchise movie about lesbian vampires. This might sound a bit random, but it isn’t. is just reminding us that people can be good one day and bad the next, that’s how life works.
Bobby walks out on her partner and child at the partner’s 40th birthday party, and goes to live in Cameron’s ‘beach-house’, an obscenely nice gaff with views over the Pacific. It looks like she’s falling for Cameron. I’m pretty much shouting ‘don’t do it’ at the telly, because he’s still a bit sleazy — but I can see the attraction.
I won’t tell you what happened because I don’t know yet. We’ve kept the final episode (all six are available to stream on All 4) as a telly treat for the weekend. is that good. I haven’t enjoyed a comedy-drama this much since by Aisling Bea, and what would you know, Bea even turns up in one episode as an Intimacy Supervisor, who had to re-train because no one wanted her chiropractor skills during the pandemic.
This is all top table telly comedy. It underlines the importance of #MeToo without lecturing us about it.
shows us that power and fame can corrupt anyone.
Cameron’s boss Jean, played by the peerless Wanda Sykes, is hilariously awful, but probably didn’t start out that way. In a quieter moment, Cameron sits her down and advises her to be a bit nicer. I doubt she’ll listen. In fact, I hope she doesn’t.
I only want one thing from now — season two.
