Review: King Gary S2 E1. If the definition of a ‘geezer diva’ is someone who is insensitive to the feelings of others; intrusive; unaware and self-centric, then Gary King, or King Gary as he is known is indeed a ‘geezer diva’.
Last night’s opening episode of series 2, sees Gary King (Tom Davis) and his partner Terri (Laura Checkley) gate-crash a strangers wedding to gather ideas for their own forthcoming nuptials. Car-crash would be a more appropriate description: there is nothing subtle about this offensively ill-mannered couple.
Having attended this, their fourth wedding of the day, they then attend a neighbour’s funeral (geddit) where they continue their charm offensive.
The main plot however is that Gary hires a skip to clear the couple’s spare room. As an act of neighbourly kindness he announces that the skip is open to all but then he and his young son stand guard over it to arbitrarily decide what can and cannot be thrown in.
Meanwhile his dad, ‘Big’ Gary (Simon Day), has a problem with an animal fouling his garden so recruits Winkle (Neil Maskell) as a night watchman/pest controller.
As a sub plot mumpreneur Terri has started an online candle business through a well known retail portal. Without too big a spoiler, the first thing she should have done before launching the product was to test that it works.
And so back to the skip…
Gary wakes up the following morning to find that someone has added ‘greedy boards’ to the skip and inevitably overloaded it during the night. An occurrence that was done to greater effect in One Foot In The Grave when Victor Meldrew wakes up to find a Citreon CV dumped in his skip.
Deep down somewhere in that giant frame Gary is full of good intentions: as those intentions bubble to the surface they become offensive, noxious even, however, remarkably and so refreshingly, none of the characters resort to expletives for laughs. A sitcom that could be screened before the watershed is rare and so welcome.
Review: King Gary summary: King Gary is funny in parts; cringe-worthy in parts and silly in others but the combination is an enjoyable half hour’s viewing.