Will Sharpe

Flowers, which ran through the week on Channel 4, was a true hen's teeth rarity: we were witnessing, I think, the invention of a new genre. I'm just not sure quite what it was. Thorny, yes, prickly and awkward. Bleakly black too. Resoundingly human and truly funny. Above all, the singular vision of show runner (and writer and director and co-star) Will Sharpe, an Anglo-Japanese former Footlights president. What I do know is that I could have watched it all year long.

There were elements of Roald Dahl and Japanese anime, of Black Mirror and of Alan Ayckbourn, of fairytales for children who drink. Essentially the tale of a depressed writer and his savagely dysfunctional family, as the week wore on it became more forgiving. It's a sign of good drama when there's strength in depth of casting, and there were relishably chunky cameos for Angus Wright and Anna Chancellor as the true grotesques of the piece. But the family itself, the Flowers, survived near fatalities and worse to emerge, if not triumphant, then hugely and recognisably normal.

Olivia Colman, now forgiven the occasional misstep in The Night Manager, was back to all her charm and glory. We have grown used to seeing Colman in full-teeth mode, but she'd obviously been hiding a seventh set: no one else can hiss the accusatory "blabbermouth" while still blinding the world with a smile so wide nor so full of brittle self-doubt. Then there was Daniel Rigby as the son who bores everything but the pants off women, and Sophia Di Martino as sis Amy, the tender fulcrum around which much revolves. Above all, Julian Barratt as father Maurice, who conjures worlds of depression from just a pocketful of mumbles. The sadly salient point came on Thursday, when Deborah (Colman) attempted to reach the heart of Maurice's depression: we can fight it, she says, fight the monster together, maybe just with love. A shaggy shake of a sorrowful head. "No. Love just makes it worse." Truthfully, a week-long gem.

Why you should be binge-watching Flowers (Link expired)

Good new comedies can be hard to come by, so thank goodness for Flowers, the new Channel 4 comedy from writer/director Will Sharpe that debuted earlier this week and is being shown an episode a night.

TV review: Flowers

A strange and saturnine new drama-comedy series from the pen of Will Sharpe, Flowers opened with Julian Barratt's writer, Maurice Flowers, attempting to hang himself from a tree near his family's rural cottage. It got darker from there.

Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt together to fall apart

This melancholic new comedy features a married couple at odds and jokes as twisted as the staircases. We meet the stars and wunderkind creator.

Flowers: Channel 4's peculiar, poetic comedy treat

Sad, strange and very funny comedy drama Flowers stars Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt.

Black comedy normally draws on a juxtaposition between disturbing subject matter and glib humour. Instead, Will Sharpe's six-part series - set in the shambolic rural home of the Flowers family (played by Julian Barrat, Olivia Colman, Daniel Rigby and Sophia Di Martino) and screening every evening across the week - intermingles its knotty and desperately sad plot with the kind of comedy that litters our lives no matter what state they are in. The heartbreaking and hilarious result sets a new standard for situation comedies everywhere.

Flowers: Channel 4's peculiar, poetic comedy treat

Sad, strange and very funny comedy drama Flowers, feat. Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt, starts tonight on Channel 4...

Flowers is a clever, bleakly funny look at depression

Will Sharpe's Channel 4 series finds the humour in the grimness of life - and in a wonderfully unusual way.

Julian Barratt and Will Sharpe interview

The star of new Channel 4 comedy Flowers joins writer Will Sharpe to discuss their dark new series.

Flowers review

Having previously co-written and co-directed the acclaimed indie film Black Pond, one of Chris Langham's few projects since his downfall, Will Sharpe can rightly stake a claim to be a genuine comedy auteur on the back of this original and compelling work.