Henpocalypse!; At Home With the Furys; Paranormal: The Girl, The Ghost and The Gravestone

“It’s rare to find a new comedy this assured and unashamed. We should treasure it, and perhaps even be proud. Because while America’s idea of a comic story of female togetherness seems to be yet more Sex and the City, we have this. A world gloriously high on its last snorts of Maxwell House coffee and final, precious dregs of penis colada.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Over and above the writing and performances, Henpocalypse! provides the same sort of joy that Smack the Pony or, say, any of Michelle Gomez’s scenes in Green Wing do. It’s the sight of women given loud, reckless, daft parts to play, asked to do liberated and liberating things in the name of comedy, and running with them for the horizon. I’d like it even wilder next time, please.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The characters are a well-contrasted bunch. But the script, by Caroline Moran, lacks shape, sharpness and wit. The first ten minutes consisted of drunken shrieking, and the rest was mostly the same joke repeated in different versions: the women have lots of sex toys and no food.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The problem was, none of it was actually very funny. So many girls behaving badly and yet, not quite outrageous enough to garner Hot Fuzz vibes, nor (at least not yet) committed enough to its relationships for that wholesome feel The Inbetweeners gave us even as it ramped up the blow job jokes.”
Francesca Steele, The i

“At Home With the Furys performs the same task as every other show in this genre, which is to portray its subjects as enviably glamorous and earthily ordinary at the same time. If you weren’t gripped by Keeping Up With the Kardashians, all the hectic luxury soon becomes boring. That it’s being experienced by a sweary British giant doesn’t make much difference.”
Jack Seale, The Guardian

“The Furys come across as a likeable couple. There are flashes of something deeper when Paris talks about her husband’s mental health. He has ADHD and depression, and has been diagnosed as bipolar. The series doesn’t shy away from his mood swings and sometimes erratic behaviour – Paris refers to him as “a giant 6 foot 9 child” – but the show prefers to keep things light. It reminded me a little of The Osbournes (the original family reality show starring Ozzy, Sharon and co) and is thankfully not as awful as the Amir Khan series Meet the Khans: Big in Bolton.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“While the show occasionally feels contrived rather than fly-on-the-wall – a scene where Paris signs copies of her memoir while making a plot-expanding phone call springs to mind – its courageous transparency about Tyson’s mental health struggles more than make up for brief instances of scriptedness.”
Emily Watkins, The i

“Netflix don’t seem to have realised that the lead star being bored isn’t the best starting point for a series about family life. And yet, as At Home With The Furys unfolds, I found myself unexpectedly empathising with Fury – but the show has a long way to go before reaching the dramatic heights of its reality TV predecessors.”
Rachel McGrath, The Independent

“It is all filmed in the BBC3 style, which means the presenter swallows up the screen time. If you cut out the scenes of Eleri tapping away on a laptop, pinning evidence to a corkboard, driving around or brushing her teeth, this could have been two episodes rather than four.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“The tale is told in podcast style, with plenty of creepy music. It’s chilling and intriguing, but needs a more serious, less sensational examination to do it justice.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail