Nick Frost

Robert B Weide: How Mr Sloane was created

On July 18, 2010, I was driving on a Los Angeles freeway to visit my mother, and out of the corner of my eye, to my right, I caught a glimpse of a man in a car who reminded me a bit of British actor Nick Frost.

A lot can happen to Jeremy Sloane (Nick Frost) in a half-hour episode. One minute he's covered in Reggie's vomit after an impromptu stag and the next he's bumping into Robin, the American object of his affections. With a new teaching job and a theatre date, things are looking up, but there's still plenty of opportunity for bungling. Bodily functions put a spanner in the works and Mr Sloane really comes alive when Frost fights a "floater" in a cringe-inducing toilet scene. No wonder there's guffawing around the pub table afterwards.

Radio Times review

This comedy from one of the chaps behind Curb Your Enthusiasm revels in its late 60s setting: there's the imperious telephone operator, the glum son in the corner of the pub waiting for his dad to finish up, the blithe drink-driving. There's also an icky dollop of toilet humour in its most literal sense and, inevitably, a sprinkling semantic confusion because Mr Sloane has fallen for a comely American who says "faucet" instead of tap.

In other words it's not the sharpest of scripts but that hardly matters when you have Nick Frost as your lead, doing what he does best: earnest awkwardness. He's a joy to watch.

Nick Frost's Mr Sloane: Best comedy of the year

Nick Frost's 1960s tragi-comedy - starring actress of the moment Olivia Colman - is Britain's answer to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Mr Sloane review

The real asset here is Nick Frost, a performer with such a natural propensity for comedy he could probably make castration seem funny.

Radio Times review

In the past decade Nick Frost has gone from being Simon Pegg's bumbling sidekick to a Hollywood film star in his own right. So it's a treat to have him back on the small screen in a comedy written especially for him by Curb Your Enthusiasm director/producer Robert B Weide.

Set in 1969 in buttoned-up Watford, Mr Sloane is about a chap so hapless he can't even succeed at his own suicide. In the opening scene he tries to hang himself but crashes to the floor, bringing half the ceiling with him. He's lost his job, his wife and is prone to rose-tinted daydreams at odds with horn-rimmed reality.

Although this first episode is short on belly laughs, it goes down as easily as a glass of Babycham thanks to a tip-top cast (including Olivia Colman as estranged spouse) and its deliciously drab setting.

Why you must watch Nick Frost in Mr Sloane

It's a pitch perfect piece of TV, telling its bittersweet story with wit and warmth and deft psychological insight.

Fame comes at a cost it would seem as the star of Sky Atlantic comedy Mr Sloane believes his co-star has been priced out of the market after winning big at the Baftas. The Sun reports Nick Frost as joking that Olivia Colman would be far too expensive to bring back as his on-screen wife for a second series after she scored a hat-trick at the TV awards. "We could never afford her now," said Frost. "If we do a second series, we'll have to have a chimp play my wife."

Mr Sloane episode 1 review: Meet Mr Sloane

Does new sixties-set Sky Atlantic comedy, Mr Sloane, have more to offer than a winning central performance by Nick Frost?

13 reasons to adore Nick Frost, in GIFs

From Spaced to Hot Fuzz and new Sky Atlantic show Mr Sloane, Nick Frost is a legend.