The Chair; Nine Perfect Strangers; I Am Maria; Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back

“Creators Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman pack into each moreish episode a plethora of issues. From racism, sexism and ageism to newer, more slippery eels such as cancel culture, the clash between working practicalities and ideological dreams, questions of who has authority, why and how far it extends and more. It’s The Chair’s great achievement to make none of this feel worthy or didactic. It feels like a genuine exploration, a dramatised discussion of intergenerational differences and divides that few are seeking to take the heat out of and examine with real interest. And it’s funny.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The tone is morosely funny and the story goes down easily in 30-minute servings. It’s breezy, funny and Sandra Oh and Jay Duplass throw up sparks off each other. Like a day idling around campus when you should be going to lectures, The Chair won’t change your life. But it kills the time very pleasantly.”
Ed Power, The Telegraph

“It’s a happy surprise to report that Netflix’s The Chair outstrips its expected grades. One of several refreshing qualities is that it puts the ostensible outsider immediately in a position of authority. The script, by the actor and executive producer Amanda Peet, takes care to avoid obvious young-vs-old traps. But if anything lets The Chair down it’s that it rounds off too many of its sharp edges. If there’s one thing a university education is meant to teach, it’s that students need to learn to take it as well as dish it out.”
Ed Cumming, The Independent

“There is a void where the story should be, filled with gong baths and trippy music and Nicole Kidman’s least subtle performance since she played an evil taxidermist in Paddington. Occasionally there are flashes of humour that suggest this could have been a smart satire on the wellness industry. But there isn’t enough of it.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“The stellar cast’s obvious chemistry helps elevate a script that grows increasingly melodramatic as each of their character’s secrets are brought to light. Masha’s unconventional treatments, meanwhile, work better as plot devices than they do as skewerings of the modern wellness industry. It may all make for toothless satire but it’s still enjoyably soapy TV.”
Kevin EG Perry, The Independent

“The cast is very good. Unfortunately after watching the three episodes available on Amazon Prime today I have to report that what has followed so far is not thrilling, sinister, or of much consequence or action whatsoever. All of this is not to say Nine Perfect Strangers is not watchable: it is. Glossy, stridently performed for the most part, undemanding and so far, deeply unsophisticated. The stakes are very low, except perhaps for Kidman’s career.”
Sarah Carson, The i

“Lesley Manville’s performance as a middle-aged woman craving spontaneity but feeling suffocated in her ostensibly happy but stagnant marriage was breathtakingly good. It was so raw, real and intense (sometimes look-away so) that you could almost forget she was acting. An excruciating, exhilarating watch and one of the best Manville performances I’ve seen.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The improvised dialogue felt raw and real, with Manville on commanding form as things came to a head over an excruciating family lunch. Some aspects felt a little hackneyed. Yet the story was never predictable.
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Behind all the daftness (and not all Lycett’s jokes land) this show has serious intent, a fist in a sequinned glove. Fair play to Lycett — it’s not easy to meld humour with consumer and environmental issues, but he pulls it off with originality.”
Carol Midgley, The Times