Crashing

There is a hospital in London. An old hospital. The halls where blood-coughing terminals once filled their spits with green chunks (eh yeah), are no longer available to science. The operating rooms, where nervous surgeons, sunk up to their elbow in the carcass of their patient, eagerly searched for that inflamed appendix, have shower cubicles; In the morning hours, the smell of bacon & eggs escapes from the waiting rooms and the arrival hall has degenerated into a disorderly bicycle shed. The hospital has become an anti-squat. The residents are not anarchist Italians with greasy dreadlocks and some very skinny garbage cans, but fairly normal people with fairly normal lives and fairly normal dreams. Anthony and Kate, who want to live cheaply for a while so that they can save for their wedding, for example. Or the French Melody who needs the space for her artwork and a gigantic father complex. Together with Fred, who has just closed the door of the cupboard he came out of, and mooiboy Sam, they try as best they can to fulfill their duty as caretakers without getting in each other's way. Ooh and there is also a kind of Phoebe in it, but with a ukulele. I always think of Channel 4 as the British answer to HBO. It's often unpolished and quirky, but feast nine times out of ten. Top Boy? Feast. Catastrophe? Chuckle and feast. Utopia? Completely insane, but delicious. Of course it would be nice to add Crashing to this with a lot of drum roll, but we have to remain realistic. For a comedy, the joke density (is a word here) leaves something to be desired and that is a deduction. It's a bit like Channel 4's other shake-up bump Peep Show here and there. Days in the lifes or with the occasional absurd situation or witty remark. So don't expect someone like The Big Bang Theory to throw that canned laugh tape into your living room after every manic sentence. You really have to smile at your own discretion and I can imagine that not everyone has the strength to do so. That makes Crashing a series for those who don't mind investing a bit in their own entertainment. Are you a sucker for the easy laugh, then this is certainly not one for you. www.gumstarr.com