Flowers

Remember when Channel 4 was home to edgy, intelligent comedy, subversive music, cult films and late-night, stoner-vision staples such as Vidz? Me too. Albeit through a hazy vignette next to memories of carving flints and ducking pterodactyls.

All the more surprising then that Channel 4 should spring Flowers on us. At first glance a sort of grim fairytale about a dysfunctional family living in darkest Surrey, but also an often genuinely funny and heartfelt character study which has had me both laughing out loud and tearing up more often than I'd want to admit.

The characters are of course what drive Flowers. Julian Barratt, as a depressed children's author, gives every bit as fantastic a performance as you'd expect, while a special mention deserves to go to lesser known Sophia Di Martino, whose portrayal of creepy, socially isolated daughter, Amy, could've been one-dimensional, but is played with an almost profound depth and sensitivity, and soon becomes someone you genuinely find yourself caring about.

Will Sharpe's writing displays a maturity beyond his years, along with a wonderfully surreal and original sense of humour.

Of course not everyone will warm to it. It starts off depicting a failed suicide attempt – clearly its main intent is not winning over Daily Mail readers or the easily offended. It pulls no punches in its depiction of depression, but also manages to find a strange beauty in it. It's somewhat near-the-knuckle in Sharpe's depiction of his own Japanese heritage, and may even raise a few eyebrows with its tongue-in-cheek conflating of "feminist" and "lesbian".

But the whole thing is sewn together with such rare intelligence and sensitivity, not to mention beautiful cinematography, that you never get the feeling it's opting for cheap laughs.

There's only one more episode to go, and I'm already missing it; looking to re-watching it; and annoyingly and incessantly pushing it on family and friends.

"Flowers" is dark, funny, poignant, and smart. A terrible beauty. I couldn't look away, and couldn't stop watching until I'd finished the entire series in a single sitting.

Will Sharpe's superb writing is brought to life by an equally superb cast of actors who give stunning performances. Barratt and Coleman in serious roles are a revelation. Sophia Di Martino and Daniel Rigby are convincingly fragile, but still relatable and even likable. Sharpe's acting is as powerful as his writing, adopting the role of Shun -- the Japanese glue barely holding this broken English family together.

"Flowers" is easily some of the best television I've seen, and I'll be following Sharpe's career with great interest.

Please give this beautiful show a try. It's funny, dark, quirky and brilliant. It's primarily a portrayal of mental illness and it's forms, but is character driven. It's part high art, part horror imagery.. part comedy, part awkward Brit cringe-drama. Don't pass it up if you enjoy deep themes and excellent acting. Cinematography is top notch, also!

Once in a while a rare show comes around and surprises you completely out of the blue. It's impossible to pick one genre to describe this show, it's a wonderful mix of different genres that compliment each other/

The characters in this show feel completely relatable, yet also distant at the same time. I really felt their struggles and pain throughout the series. It's a dark comedy on the surface but goes much deeper into the emotions of the characters. It really all comes together really well.

I can't wait to see what Will Sharpe works on next. The actors are brilliant in this. Julian Barratt's best role since Mighty Boosh. Olivia Colman and Will Sharpe easily steal the show in my opinion though.

Can't recommend this show enough! It's one of a kind.

Series One:

Bleak black humour at it's brilliant best, the first season of Flowers is absolutely wonderful. It is a very dark comedy that will not be appreciated by everyone, it's the type that the British do very well, but if this is what you're into it'd be difficult to find something better.

Firstly, casting is simply brilliant. Barratt is simply fantastic in his role as the struggling father, you feel for him constantly and his attempts to spare his family his pain. Coleman, as always, is perfect as the starkly contrasting wife, and the twins each fit into the disfunctional family excellently. Each main character has their own arc and develop well in the space of a few short episodes. The growth is often, if not always, in a dark light, but the laughs throughout are plenty.

Sharpe clearly wrote himself the most lovable character as Shun, the Japanese illustrator who'd do anything for the Flower family. A brilliant source for jokes, or light relief from heavy subjects, it's impossible not to like him. However, when it comes to his own demons, these are by far the most powerfully emotional, simply brilliant.

The additional character of 'George' seemed unnecessary, it's an outlandish personality yes but just so dislikeable. He and ' Abigail' didn't truly bring anything to the show, they interlinked with a couple of the arcs but really nothing important. However this would be my only critism, the visuals, dialogue, and everything else were perfect.

Series One: 9/10

Series Two:

Where did it all go wrong? The second series is just infinitely worse as it loses any sense of humour, or emotion, or relatability. Focus switches heavily to 'Amy', who was a great character in the first series. This time around, it's just too heavy and dives so far into lunacy that it loses any sense of comedy. The Baumgaetner arc is dull and pointlessly surreal, and wastes so much time that it's almost as if the other characters' developments no longer matter, which is a shame because 'Donald' gets given another dimension.

Acting wise there can still be no complaints, but the weird sense of relation you may have gained with each character is lost here. Laughs come up every so often, but not much. Even 'Shun' is taken away, as he turns to drink. I imagine this could have been a really great story if the surrounding context was better in any way, the same could be said for 'Maurice'. The series does ditch the previously pointless characters, but they are replaced to a lesser extent.

In all fairness the final two episodes are better, particularly the last, which is beautiful. But this is only because it's more of a prequel/flashback, and the emotion and innocence of Shun is explored.

However, it's disappointing that Flowers turned out so differently in the second season, no element of comedy was there. The ending is lovely in a way, but I'm not sure it makes up for the rest.

Series Two: 6/10