Instead, it gave us the diametric opposite of South Park – the behaviours of the playground transposed into the adult world. Stath misses a million tricks by speeding through the viewing scenes, with their landing toilets, four-foot ceilings and kitchen-diner-bedroom-bogs. If we came to series one expecting a satirical takedown of a laughably overpriced and exploitative rental market that expects you to shell out 400 per cent of your monthly income to live in a ‘well-appointed’ cat litter tray above an all-night abattoir on Tooting’s ‘trendy’ Asbestos Mile, we were disappointed. Rarely, though, has the fine art of arrested development been so liberally, and often brilliantly, deployed as in Stath Lets Flats. To allow your characters to age, evolve or experience major life changes – beyond the long-teased will-they-won’t-they cop-off at the end of series three – is to risk unbalancing the chemistry or, worse still, allowing them the faculties to consider escaping their intricately constructed comedy bear trap. But the story and the set-piece jokes – Stath enjoyed romantically cutting the hair of his colleague and “mayor of gentleman town”, Al (Al Roberts) – weren’t the draw.From Maggie Simpson to Father Dougal, arrested development is so core to the art and sustainability of the average sitcom that there’s even one named after it. So began Stath’s quest to get a new “park time” job at his cousin’s barbers.
While he could barely contain his excitement, it wasn’t exactly good timing – Michael and Eagle had been forced to relocate to his father’s (Christos Stergioglou) house and, until they convinced their landlords to stick with them and found another office, they couldn’t pay anyone. The show picked up nine months after the series two finale, with Carole (Katy Wix) about to give birth to Stath’s (Demetriou) baby at any moment.
After a long break, its silly yet heartfelt return last night proved it’s still the daftest show on television. Stath Lets Flats, Jamie Demetriou’s brilliant series about the off-the-wall, loveable agents at Michael and Eagle Lettings won the Bafta for Best Scripted Comedy last year – beating Catastrophe, Derry Girls and Fleabag.
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