Mr. Sloane

Season 1 Episode 3: Review

Perhaps the best moment of the episode for me was when Robin affectionately looked at Sloane on the way back as he hung his head out of the car window like a dog.

Nick Frost's bespectacled antihero Mr Sloane is comfortable as a 50s throwback, but just when it's beginning to look like he'll never embrace the swinging 60s, Robin charms him out of his shell. A flashback to his birthday where Janet (Olivia Colman) presents him with tickets for a cruise makes it easy to lose sympathy with him. But then Robin, with her flicky eyeliner and San Francisco free spirit, forces him to go to a club and even dance. He's quite the natural once he gets going, in a "nervous crab" sort of way.

Radio Times review

Watching this comedy is like being trapped in a Woody Allen fantasy: it's hard to believe a beautiful, young, free-spirited American would ever be interested in a portly, persnickety Englishman who is loath to leave Watford. If you can swallow that, it's a class act (the 60s set is worthy of a costume drama).

In this episode, our hapless hero has his first taste of marijuana shortly before a deliciously disastrous job interview. OK, so it's not the most original of scenes but Nick Frost is even funnier playing a pothead.

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.

Mr Sloane TV review

This ain't Mad Men, but a homage to a typical British 60s sitcom is worth a look.

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.

If you're watching Mr Sloane, Sky Atlantic's new 1969-set dramedy, you'll have been enjoying the performance of fabulously-named Ophelia Lovibond, as a hippie chick love interest. A Bond girl in waiting, if ever there was one, Miss Lovibond says she gets fan mail delightfully mis-addressed to "Ophelia Lovely-bum". It's a silly name, but as my fellow credit-watchers will know, far from the silliest. A gentleman called Speed Weed is a producer on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Tip Tipping was a top stuntman working on The Bill and Doctor Who until his sad death in 1993 and it's always worth looking out for 'Cricket Sloat' in the closing credits. Despite a name best-suited to the stage, he/she works various roles in the camera and electrical department.

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.

Olivia Colman and Ophelia Lovibond: Get the Look

Want that 60's vibe this spring/summer? Then look no further - here are our top tips to getting the look from Sky Atlantic's Mr Sloane...

Ophelia Lovibond on playing Robin in Mr Sloane

It is easy to see why she has already been likened to Woody Allen's original muse Diane Keaton. Apart from their shared striking looks, her comic timing is impeccable.