The Cutprice Guignol

So, I’ve written a little about Brassic before – specifically, it’s depiction of mental illness – after the first season came out, but I’ve just finished the fifth series of the show, and my fam, my loves, my darlings, I have to tell you how great it is.

Brassic is an ensemble comedy-drama set in the North of England, following Vinnie (Joseph Gilgun) and his moderately useless pack of low-level criminals as they try to scrape by via a collection of schemes, scams, and indeed, scamolas. I could probably have it on repeat forever, to be honest – it’s become a real comfort watch for me, and Autumn isn’t complete without a season of this show to cringe my way through.

Though it feels weird to call a show so often as dark as Brassic is a comfort watch, but that is absolutely what Joseph Gilgun and Danny Brocklehurst’s dramedy masterpiece has become to me. I grew up in Scotland, and there’s a lot to be said for the overlap of that dark sense of humour between the Scots and people in the North of England, so perhaps that’s part of it. Nothing makes my heart warm like seeing someone call their best friend the worst names under the sun, you know? It just feels right to me. Takes me back to my childhood. That brusque, slightly brutal affection feels sincere to me in a way a lot of more earnest TV writing doesn’t, and it makes the moments of genuine sweetness (usually presented without fanfare) stand out even more. This show is a purveyor of patter in the most profound sense of the word, one of the highest honours I can bestow on any piece of media.

But more than that, I think what makes Brassic the kind of show I can never stop coming back to is the ensemble. I truly think Brassic’s leading cast might be the best ensemble on television right now; from Ryan Sampson’s leather-trouser-enthusiast-sex-worker Tommo, to the exquisite Bronagh Gallagher’s scene-stealing one-line-machine Carol, to Michelle Keegan’s warm but witty Erin, there isn’t anything even close to a weak link here in the central group. The chemistry is outrageous, and the quality of writing – that always balances individual personality with what this group brings out in them – is incredibly impressive across all five seasons. I could watch a full-length movie of this gang do the rounds at the local shopping centre and have the time of my fucking life doing it. I hope that’s an episode next season, genuinely.

Brassic is fucking fantastic, and please consider this your invitation – nay, order – to do just that. It’s one of my favourite shows of the last decade, and a total, warm, witty, and genuinely heartfelt watch, in between liberal use of the word “cunt”. And if that isn’t an adage to live my life by, I don’t know what is.

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(header image via The Guardian)