How Do You Want Me? Review
If ever a show deserved lost classic status Simon Nye's How Do You Want Me is that show. While the first two series inspired a smallish but loyal following in the UK it was virtually unknown outside of those borders. The following was growing, however, as word got out about just how good it was, but just as it was truly hitting its stride and appeared on the cusp of something greater it was cut short by the tragic death of star Charlotte Coleman. Coleman's passing left everyone involved in a state of shock, continuing without her was impossible, and like most shows beloved by a loyal few yet never having made a significant impact on the mainstream it appeared destined to fade into total obscurity. Happily, this has proven not to be so as a new DVD release is coming to give the show a new lease on life.
How Do You Want Me is that rarest of rare things: a romantic comedy based on the premise that getting together is the easy part, that sometimes loving someone is the cause of the problems rather than the solution to them. It is so different from the standard rom-com, so much more mature and nuanced, that the label scarcely seems to fit. With a stellar cast, many of whom have gone on to very successful careers in the UK and beyond, and impeccably smart writing How Do You Want Me is a show that won't overwhelm you with flash or style but will instead leaves you with the impression that you have just encountered a work of substance and quality that also happens to be very, very funny.
Dylan Moran (Black Books, Tristram Shandy, Shaun of the Dead) and Charlotte Coleman star as Ian and Lisa Lyons, a young married couple very much in love yet struggle to reconcile their differences. The pair met in London where Ian ran a successful comedy club and Lisa taught primary school and, after a whirlwind romance married on an impulse while vacationing in Budapest. But while Ian is every inch an urbanite, Lisa is far less comfortable with big city life and the show begins with the two of them living in the country, Ian having given up the lifestyle he loves to move with Lisa back to the tiny rural village that is her family home.
While village life clearly agrees with Lisa, Ian is utterly lost. While he thrived in the city he is simply lost in this bewildering new rural world. He has no useful skills here, no role to fill. The anonymity the city provided is completely absent here, with the entire village being privy to everyone's secrets. To make matters even harder Lisa is now working side by side with a former boyfriend played by Mark Heap (Spaced, Green Wing) who has clearly never gotten over his feelings for her. While Lisa's sister seems relatively friendly her brother -- played by Peter Serafinowicz (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, the voice of Darth Maul) -- is a deranged, thuggish goon and her father positively despises Ian, insisting that Ian apologize for having dared marry his daughter in the first place. Ian purchases a local photography studio and attempts to integrate himself into village life but success is terminally slow in arriving.
What makes How Do You Want Me so remarkable is, as much as anything, what it does not do. It refuses to go for the easy laugh and broad slapstick, particularly where Ian and Lisa are concerned. It falls somewhere between an episodic and linear approach, throwing new situations at the couple while also charting a chronological path through their relationship and it takes its core premise that these must all be treated as real, actual people rather than comic types very seriously from start to finish. It works, and works very well, because the relationship between Coleman and Moran rings so true. It's no surprise that the show ceased immediately on Coleman's death, this was a role that could not possibly have been re-cast and since the relationship was the show, you could not have continued without her.
The entire cast is phenomenally strong. Not having seen Coleman in anything else it is impossible to compare her work to other efforts but this is clearly the high point of Moran's career to date. The enormously popular -- and for good reason, as he's very, very funny - Irish comedian has long worked off of a blustering, drunken persona and while his Ian Lyons certainly contains elements of that Moran gives him a human core that is largely absent from his caricature-like work in his signature effort Black Books. Black is a comic type, Lyons is an actual person and while you laugh at his behavior when he slips into the bottle you also feel the growing sense of despair that has driven him to it, admire his devotion to Lisa, and want to see him pull everything together. Heap's effort as Lisa's would-be lover is remarkably restrained, certainly an unusually subtle turn from a man who has at different times painted naked with his penis as a brush (Spaced) and given himself an enema with piping hot coffee (Green Wing). The only one of the more recognizable cast members who really cuts loose, in fact, is Peter Serafinowicz as Lisa's hard drinking, thuggish brother who views a good soccer brawl as wholesome weekend entertainment and whose moods swing wildly with the weather.
The new DVD release features both series of the show split over two discs. It is sadly completely devoid of any special features -- at the bare minimum some sort of tribute to Coleman would have been appreciated -- but the show itself is well presented in the original aspect ratios (4:3 for series one, 16:9 for series two) with good quality transfers. If you missed this the first time around I strongly recommend looking into it now.
