The end of the world is no laughing matter, unless you’re watching brand new sitcom Everyone Else Burns (Channel 4).
It stars sometime Inbetweener Simon Bird as David, the patriarch of a regular suburban English family, who just happen to be in a cultish organisation which believes the end of the world is nigh.
Apocalypse practice
Members of the fictional Order of the Divine Rod have to prepare for the day the Apocalypse comes.
So the first of this week’s opening two episodes began with the family being frantically woken by David in the dark of morning for “Apocalypse practice”.
Although as far as the kids knew, it really was the end of the world.
Groggy but panicked, as though they’ve slept in for a flight, David and his wife Fiona (Kate O’Flynn) bicker over whether to take the cat or the wedding photos on their journey to salvation.
Meanwhile, young Aaron (Harry Connor) seems more than ready for the big day, excitedly gasping “finally!” as he’s woken.
Teenager Rachel (Amy James-Kelly) begins to pray.
“God’s not going to answer your prayers right now,” grumbles Fiona. “He’s busy lighting up heathens.”
A mundane life, really
Next to all this drama, their life is as mundane as anyone else’s.
David works in a mail sorting office with fanatical fervour, all the better to fund his family’s doomsday preparation.
Fiona finds her devoutness challenged by the friendly but very blunt sympathies of neighbour Melissa (Morgana Robinson).
Aaron seems like a little clone version of his pudding-bowl haircut wearing father, but if he’s so devoted to David, why does he draw disturbing pictures of him experiencing unspeakable torment in the afterlife?
Poor Rachel trudges from door to door in all weathers asking people to talk about God, while her outstanding grades at school are a source of parental shame.
How much preaching time has all this studying wasted? Her teacher Miss Simmonds is concerned, although she’s a bad influence herself, played coolly and amusingly embittered by Lolly Adefope.
Between a sitcom and a soap
Creator Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor’s concept has a whole lot of meat on its bones to digest, although its potential in these early stages doesn’t carry through to uproarious sitcom success on a par with Peepshow or Derry Girls.
There’s an odd domestic gentleness to it, somewhere between sitcom and classy soap opera.
While the pitch rests on examining beliefs which put their follow outside of normal society, a deeper dig suggests it’s really all about the patriarchy.
Interesting characters
Bird’s David reprises his Inbetweeners character Will, a vainglorious but somehow deeply inadequate nerd, whose grasping efforts to become a new Elder of the Order ahead of charming arch-rival Andrew (Kadiff Kirwan) are as non-devout as they come.
Aaron is clearly being damaged by him, Fiona is obviously questioning her life choices and Rachel –on the verge of a forbidden relationship with ex-Order member Joshua (Ali Khan) – might be ready to escape her father’s control.
It’s an intriguing set-up filled with an interesting bunch of characters. If only unpicking fanaticism inspired more belly laughs, though.
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