Review of Robert Popper's new Channel 4 comedy

Robert Popper has been writing comedy a long time, peaking, so far, with Friday Night Dinner, the unlikely adventures of two twentysomething idiot brothers, forever pranking each other while surrounded by a motley cast of surreal, oddball characters.

Now he has created I Hate You – slipped out on-demand with very little fanfare from Channel 4– which revolves around the unlikely adventures of two twentysomething idiot flatmates, forever pranking each other while surrounded by a motley cast of surreal, oddball characters. Why break a winning formula? 

The relationship between Charlie (Tanya Reynolds) and Becca (Melissa Saint) is built probably more on circumstance than a deep-seated connection. They’re fairly shallow characters, talking nonsense at each other and evading much complexity in their relationship, much as they avoid any responsibilities in the rest of their lives. Although I Hate You is an odd title, as they get along relatively fine.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to raise questions of authenticity, having a middle-aged bloke write for two young women, but this isn’t that sort of a comedy. Realism isn’t important here. Charlie and Becca are just vessels for the same kind of dumb jokes and piss-taking that defined the sibling relationship between FND’s Adam and Jonny.

And there’s much for each other to mock, especially when Becca starts dating a much older guy in episode one, offering a rich seam of age-related jokes that Popper mines with the fervour of Rio Tinto. He’s created a very sitcommy world - episode two revolves around a valuable document that inevitably gets ruined and the subsequent plotting to get away with it, with an equally exaggerated running joke about flies landing on people’s heads.

Likewise, the supporting cast are larger-than-life, including Jonny Sweet doing his usual posh-but-dim turn as Charlie’s boss Bob Oxygen (straight from the Toast Of London school of character naming, that) and as Colin McFarlane as a very eccentric Lord. They don’t have the humanity of the similarly twisted Friday Night Dinner characters, but the off-the-wall tone’s probably close enough to appeal to fans of its illustrious predecessor. 

• I Hate You is available on All 4. Review based on the first two episodes

Published: 4 Oct 2022