Hunderby (Julia Davies, 2012)

What a breadth of fresh air this is. It does look like a period drama, but it’s more of a farce. Call it a spoof, call it what you like; the thing that makes it original is the use of language. The comedic elements reside primarily on the dialogues and their baroqueness: it somehow manages to make a fart joke sound literary. Each episode is full of sores, shit, spunk, blood and all things scatological and each line is delivered with the straightest face.

Julia Davies is superb in her role of an evil faithful servant and it was good to see Utopia‘s Alexandra Roach again.  On a side note, it was is a real pity the characterisation made Alexander Armstrong devoid of any sex-appeal (hrrmph!).

The series sort of loses momentum and the jokes start to seem slightly repetitive. The only way out of it was to make it more obvious, daring, crazy and cheap. I much prefer the first episodes but I’m glad I watched it all.

Watch it, it’s good.

Rating: 7/10