Happiness (TV series)

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Happiness was a British sitcom broadcast on BBC2 with dramatic, melancholy overtones written by Paul Whitehouse and David Cummings with Whitehouse in the lead role.

There have been two series thus far, the first running in 2001 and the second in 2003. Whitehouse has stated that there will probably not be a third [1].

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

[edit] Series one

Whitehouse plays Danny Spencer, a successful voice artist for a popular cartoon bear called Dexter. Spencer is trying to come to terms with the death of his wife, though much of his concern is that he finds he isn't feeling the loss as deeply as he should.

Approaching his fortieth birthday he is independent and single and the programme's themes are largely bound up with the opportunities and problems that this situation creates. His friends are a disparate group, ranging from the strait-laced Terry and Rachel (Mark Heap, Fiona Allen), through the down and outs - Charlie and Sid (Johnny Vegas and Pearce Quigley), to the archetypal man in a mid-life crisis, Angus Clive Russell. To varying degrees these friends offer Spencer inspiration and cautionary tales as to how Spencer can fill his life.

[edit] Series two

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[edit] Awards

[edit] Critical reception

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  • "Happiness is part of that newish genre, the situation tragedy, or sitraj as I think of it [...] So in a sitcom you expect to laugh, but get a frisson from the underlying sadness. In a sitraj you feel like topping yourself until a joke comes along [...] I won't say it made me cry with laughter, but I certainly laughed while nearly snuffling."

    - Simon Hoggart in The Spectator, March 24, 2001[2].

  • "oh dear, Happiness is so much less good than I hoped [...] you knew you were in trouble as soon as you learnt that his wife run over on a pedestrian-crossing by an ice-cream van [...] if you are going to do black humour, you really have to do it with a bit of guts [...] The best thing about the programme was the title sequence [...] but the episode's big number, Katie's funeral, was a failure. Slinking in beside the broad gags were others so narrow, they were almost invisible [...] There is an emptiness at its heart and not enough going on peripherally to make up for it.

    - Andrew Billen in The New Statesman, March 26, 2001[3].

  • "This is a properly existential drama, in that it asks us how we fill our time - with bouts of infidelity, or nights at the pub? Most comic dramas have to decide when to make people laugh and how to make them cry. Danny's scabrous pessimism, then, is a rare treat in that it manages to do both, sometimes simultaneously."

    - Peter Chapman in The Independent, January 11, 2003[4].

  • "Paul Whitehouse's first major project since The Fast Show is an impressive leap from catchphrase-heavy sketch comedy. It's a comedy drama that will make anyone with a mid-life crisis wince. Whitehouse stars as a children's TV writer coming to terms with being 40 and a widower, and his topnotch supporting actors take it in turns to shine. No programme has made cannier use of Johnny Vegas."

    - Nicholas Barber in The Independent on Sunday, January 12, 2003[5].

  • "one of those modern sit-coms which dispenses with the laughter track and, in the first series, often went even further and left out jokes as well. [The second series], while still innovative and clever, achieves a better balance between the funny-bone and bone-cancer."

    - Mark Lawson in The Guardian, January 13, 2003[6]

  • "getting better even as it remains dreadfully uneven - it's at its best when the comedy is given its head and when Johnny Vegas is on screen."

    - Gerard Gilbert in The Independent, January 14, 2003[7].

  • " REALISED something while watching the new series of Paul Whitehouse's Happiness. Take away Johnny Vegas and you ain't got much of a show."

    - Ian Hyland, Sunday Mirror, January 19, 2003[8].

  • "So likeable that the occasional patches of dead air scarcely matter [...] part of their subject here is the tedium of overfamiliar routines, so it's important that some jokes deflate in front of your face."

    - Thomas Sutcliffe in The Independent, January 22, 2003[9].

[edit] Quotes

"Happiness? I think you get brief snatches of it. But it's probably not a very desirable state ... It's just a form of madness, really, isn't it?"

- Paul Whitehouse, The Guardian, February 21, 2005.

[edit] External links

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