There’s a moment in Sharon Horgan’s new show, Youth, when – as protagonist Alex (Horgan) is seeing her son off to university – she inadvertently begins to run after the car that’s taking him away. And then she catches herself, and slows. And then she starts up again.
It was such a tender, vicious glimpse into the future that I found myself sobbing into the sofa and cursing her name. All of which is to say: Sharon Horgan is back and she’s better than ever. Youth is the representation every woman who has ever slapped on an oestrogen patch after a divorce, looked around and thought “What the hell now?” has been waiting for.
Horgan herself has described it in interviews as forming the third part of a loose trilogy that began with Pulling. Co-written with Dennis Kelly, Pulling was about three thirtysomething antitheses to Bridget Jones, whose dark chaos apparently scared the BBC so much they unexpectedly cancelled it just as it was truly getting into its stride. That was followed by Catastrophe, written by and starring Horgan, with Rob Delaney, as a couple who have a fling, find that she’s pregnant and end up making a brutal, hilarious go of things.
Youth is Horgan’s even more brutal, even more hilarious take on life’s third act. Alex is a fiftysomething literary agent and divorcee. She has ageing parents (losing toes to diabetes and faculties to early dementia) to the left of her, and a troubled child and useless ex-husband to the right.
But hope springs eternal even in the most wearied breast and she is hoping to start dating again, and maybe even improve her standing at work, too, now that son Ruari (Aran Murphy) at least is off her hands for 10-week terms at a time. At her workplace, she explains her timetable to Sam (Sharlene Whyte), her friend and boss – or boss and friend (the fluctuating proportions and concomitant stresses and strains in their relationship is one of the many thickening agents Horgan has stirred into her rich stew). I need someone to fall in love with me now so there’s a bit of time left with this me before the old me is like ‘I’m here now’.” All she has to do is muster some “new dick energy” from somewhere, recover from a dislocating jaw (“Just an age thing!” her young doctor tells her), and stop crying as she clears up the smelly mess in Ruari’s room.
Can she resist giving in to booty calls to and from her never-quite-boyfriend Patrick (Rupert Friend, perfectly written as a charming borderline cad), and stop finding older men’s wattle and sagging balls a turn-off? The wattle belongs to Michael (Tim McInnerney). The balls too, in fact, though it turns out they are still defying gravity at least as much as you can ever hope for testicles.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
