Jonathan Harvey

The beige boredom of suburban adolescence has produced a stream of anti-heroes. Now, to add to the notable likes of Holden Caulfield, Malcolm (in the middle) and Adrian Mole, we have Simon Doonan, self-styled star of Beautiful People and survivor of growing up in Reading. Which takes some doing for a teenage boy into frocks.

Gay-friendly would be putting it a tad mildly for Jonathan Harvey's boisterous sitcom-style adaptation of Doonan's original memoir. It's gay-delirious, spinning off in camp tangents - including a hilarious spoof on those crazy old Egoiste ads - at the drop of an escapist hat. Not all the jokes hit the mark, but its feel for the early 1990s, those dark pre-internet days, is spot on.

Told from the perspective of Doonan's present-day persona, a slightly fey New York window-dresser played by Luke Ward-Wilkinson, Beautiful People sidesteps soft nostalgia and skewers the past with waspish wit. Clutch it to your man boobs.

Keith Watson, Metro, 2nd October 2008

Preview: Beautiful People

There are, I'm sure, a number of responses to be elicited when told that the creator of Gimme, Gimme, Gimme has created a new sitcom for BBC2 - not all of them complimentary.

But Jonathan Harvey has done just that, and after the first two episodes of Beautiful People landed on our doormat recently, I have to say that it looks like it's going to be a finely crafted, rather sweet, and often incredibly funny series.

Scott Matthewman, The Stage, 30th September 2008