🔗 Share this article

In a quiet suburb of the city, a person stands in his driveway, dressed in a tank top and voicing his concerns. “I feel my voice is fading. More invisible,” remarks Leonard, looking up at the night sky. “Events have unfolded and currently I feel like without a change, I will continue in this simple, peaceful routine.” Paul, his only companion, ponders these words. “There's no harm in that,” he responds, his bathrobe flapping with the wind. “Preferable to trying to make a mark only to wind up defacing it.”

For viewers tired by the noise and fast pace of today’s TV landscape, the show arrives like a foil blanket and a comforting beverage of blackcurrant juice.

In line with its quiet characters, Leonard and Hungry Paul – a six-part program created by Richie Conroy and Mark Hodkinson, inspired by the novelist’s understated 2019 novel – casts a critical eye at modern life; looking critically above its spectacles on everything in the way of unnecessary noise, sudden movements or – heaven forfend – an abundance of ambition. This show on the contrary, a celebration of shyness; a subtle homage to people satisfied to pootle around below the parapet. And yet. Leonard (one more sublimely idiosyncratic portrayal by the actor) is uneasy. He feels a creeping “urge to throw open the doors and windows in my existence … a little.” The passing of his beloved mother has pulled the carpet out from under him and the 32-year-old, a writer for others, now feels doubting the paths that directed him to this point (unattached; defensively moustached; working on several children’s encyclopedias for an employer who signs off messages saying “ciao for now”).

Thus Leonard launches on a journey for personal satisfaction, accompanied by the somewhat braver friend Paul (the performer) serving as his close companion, guide and ally in a weekly game night which acts as discussion (“Is the water heated because kids pee in it, or do children urinate as it's heated?”) and refuge.

(How did Paul get his nickname? It's unclear. The origin of this name is shrouded in history. Perhaps the postal worker on one occasion consumed a sandwich very fast, or answered to a socially fraught incident by nervously peeling four scotch eggs using his teeth).

Entering Leonard's quiet life comes a vibrant character (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell), a new spring-loaded associate who cheerily offers to kill the awful manager (the character) in a workplace safety exercise. The rushing noise you can hear is Leonard’s gentle world undergoing a shake-up.

In other scenes in the first episode of this program driven less by plot and centered around what a modern audience might call “vibes”, viewers encounter the older generation (the consistently great Lorcan Cranitch), a worn-out individual who privately views, records then replays television game programs to dazzle his loving spouse using his trivia skills.

Guiding us throughout this gentle kindness there is a voiceover that sounds very much like – and truly is – Julia Roberts. Truly, Julia Roberts. If you are thinking, “undoubtedly the presence of such a famous actor clashes with the show's modest approach and at first acts merely as a distraction?” you're right. Still, Roberts acquits herself well, and phrases for example “Leonard’s problem is the missing an expression of discovery” help ensure that initial doubts yield though not complete approval, then certainly understanding.

Enough complaining currently. The show's core is in the right place: that place is “located on a seat in the company of gentle comedies, showing the duck it loves.” It’s a series that strolls leisurely in comfortable attire, at times staring toward the sky, occasionally down at its slippers, quietly confident that no experience is in the world as uplifting as being with dear pals.

Unlock the entryways of your life, just a bit, and allow it entry.