Review Changing Ends
Oliver Savell is pure gold.
Changing Ends, ITVX, is brilliant: a charming coming-of-age story based on the pre-pubescent years of comedian Alan Carr growing up in Northampton where his father was manager of the towns football team.
It will surprise nobody to learn that Carr, best known for his Chatty Man talk show, would, as a camp boy, have given Larry Grayson a run for his money. Not that his parents noticed.
What the young Carr went through during that time of self-discovery is the subject of this laugh out loud sitcom. But it is not just the revelations of boyhood traumas that make this programme the sure fire hit that it will be, but the brilliant performance of, Oliver Savell, who, playing the young Carr captures the full-on mincing Carrness that we see in the adult Carr who currently graces our screens. The gagged packed script is by Carr and Simon Carlyle (Two Doors Down) who also grew up knowing he was gay but in Ayr, Scotland. They have created some superb one-liners for the young Savell who has a faultless gift for performance way above his age.
Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of the then exclusively masculine orientated world of football the contrast between effete Carr and the world around him is ladened with comedic situations. The premise is different to, and much funnier than, Young Sheldon.
If the first two episodes are anything to go by then this is a binge worthy series not to be missed. Go on, cheer yourself up and watch it today. Difficult to know these days if Changing Ends will get a second series. It certainly should: whether it does or not remains to be seen but, one thing is for sure, it’s not the last we’ve heard of young Oliver Savell.
Changing Ends Review: Television Comedy News 02.06.2023