Much of the time I tend to avoid shows about “female experience” as this kind of signposting suggests a limitation. Good comedy or drama will be about female experience without trying – surely? Yet ever since Fleabag, the centring of what TV executives think of as “messy” female characters – and I think of simply as normal women – has produced show after show to illustrate the astonishing revelation that female people are complicated. Some have been astonishingly brilliant (I Hate Suzie). Some just try too hard.
Dreamland, a new comedy developed from a Bafta-winning short by Sharon Horgan, falls somewhere in the middle. Horgan is a screenwriter and actor who has pushed the envelope for women because she isn’t afraid of darkness, even within the confines of sitcom.
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