Review of Linda Green: Complete Series 1

Introduction

A ten-part comedy/drama series about a frumpy, lounge-singing wise-cracker and her relentless series of messy male-entanglements may sound about as appealing as tea and crumpets with Herrman Goering, but former ‘Big Breakfast’ presenter Liza Tarbuck`s BBC vehicle `Linda Green` proved to a big enough hit to warrant a second series. This first series sets up Linda, a self-conscious office door-stop and her close circle of friends and family: best friend Michelle (Claire Rushbrook)and her long term boyfriend Darren (Daniel Ryan), mechanic Jimmy (Sean Gallagher) and her eccentric parents Frank (Dave Hill) and Iris (Rachel Davies).

Video

Despite its television origins, this looks pretty good: good sharpness, contrast and colour in an anamorphic transfer.

Audio

Functional. What can I tell ya? If the salsa score is more annoying than words could possibly describe, there`s little else to get worked up about.

Features

Dull as dish-water character profiles, unhelpfully entitled ‘Linda`s World’. Apart from that, sweet F A.

Conclusion

Momentarily diverting slice of Bridget Jones era single-white-female living, fortunately sparse in terms of both grim bodily-fluid realities and self-aggrandized brooding. However, it`s a mark of the series` dramatic repetitiveness and general narrative messiness that it`s the supporting characters that draw the most attention: Claire Rushbrook`s dalliances with the mother of a dead school-mate proves more dramatically satisfying than any of Liza Tarbuck`s numerous twisted males, including not one but two Christopher Ecclestons.

Things improve somewhat on the 2nd disc, where topics other than Linda’s emotional incompetence are allowed to come to the surface, although episodes dealing with Davies’ unfulfilled ambitions, the real identity of Linda’s father and the possibility of her having kids are dealt with in a more tongue-in-cheek manner than one might expect. Despite it`s genial tone and general light-heartedness, rampant discursive relationship-talk and a `listing why men are useless` quality to the overall narrative soon makes sure this overstays its welcome. Watchable however.