Jim Howick

TV preview: Stag, BBC2, episode 3

It is so hard to write about this excellent comedy thriller without giving something away. Needless to say the final episode in which the loose ends have to be tied up - probably around one of the cast's necks - is the toughest to discuss. One slip and the game may be given away.

Stag: episode 3 review

As we reach the bloody conclusion of the stag party from Hell, it is probably safe to say that no-one will guess who the killer is.

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Aliens have landed. They look like us, but their hair is hallucinogenic when shaved off and smoked, and we're really racist towards them and make them live in a lawless walled ghetto. Got that? Great. On with a swaggering escapade about a border control officer (Michael Socha) and his alien admirer (Jim Howick) getting tangled up with a mercurial alien gangster (Michaela Coel). That tremendous trio of leads, plus some backflippy direction, make this a fun ride. We can worry about where it's going later.

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TV review: Stag, BBC2, episode 2

I'm not sure how much it qualifies as a comedy now that it has got proper scary, but I'm really enjoying Stag.

Stag: episode 2 review

As with the last episode, the best thing about this episode is the characters, who are at first are mostly unlikable, but as their crisis grows you understand that each has their own problems.

Created and written by Jim Field-Smith, the creator of the wonderful The Wrong Mans, alongside George Kay, Stag follows the exploits of a boisterous gang of men on a stag party. Stumbling along as a late arrival to the hunting weekend is Ian (Jim Howick), a mild-mannered geography teacher who is totally different to the other stags celebrating the last weekend of freedom of Johnners (Stephen Campbell Moore). Ian's weekend gets off to a bad start from the get-go as he's left at the side of the road by the rest of the party before being landed with a bar bill from the local pub's stern waitress (Sharon Rooney). Events soon take a dark twist when the men are abandoned by the local gamekeeper (James Cosmo) and forced to fend for themselves in the wild. Quickly some of the party are picked off and are thought to be killed whilst the rest start to turn on each other with suspicion quickly falling on outsider Ian. I have to admit it took me a while to adjust to Stag which has none of the charm or quirky British humour which made The Wrong Mans such a joy to watch. The majority of the characters in Stag, with the exception of Ian, are initially unlikeable toffs who are described by the mild-mannered Aitken (Tim Key) as the worst kind of people. But as Kay and Field-Smith's story continues they start to reveal complexities in the characters all of whom seem to be hiding secrets of some kind. The writing duo also seem to have done their research into the sort of genre they want Stag to fit into with the general tone being that of horror thriller. There are definitely elements of both The Wicker Man and Deliverance both in the presentation of the local community and the way in which the party start to be picked off. The humour is also subtly presented with a lot of smutty, laddy banter mixed in with some genuinely funny one-liners. The ensemble cast bounced off each other perfectly with Howick brilliantly portraying the awkward outsider and the rest of the gang having excellent chemistry. I especially liked Reece Shearsmith's brief appearance as the party member who wants to escape his family as well as Borgen's Pilou Asbaek as the Danish oddball. Although I've already got an idea of how Stag is going to end I'm intrigued enough to carry on watching what must be one of the most unique TV shows of the year so far.

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