Perfect to fall asleep to: Good Grief reviewed

Good Grief is a new drama starring Sian Clifford who shot to fame as the older sister in Fleabag. The script by Lorien Haynes is described by the producers as ‘sharp, funny, brutal, irreverent and quintessentially British’. The action begins after a funeral where a handsome young Asian guy named Adam, chats to a fellow mourner, Cat, who looks about ten years older than him. Cat has set up Adam with a blind date that he didn’t enjoy. ‘I was peeling her off me,’ he says, ungallantly. But Adam’s sexuality is rather a puzzle. His wife, Liv, has died and he boasts to Cat about Liv’s endless romantic conquests. At parties Liv would spend ages telling Adam which men she’d recently seduced. And Adam claims to be proud of his dead wife’s erotic prowess. It’s not clear why. The script is keen to outrage us with its sexual frankness, like Fleabag, but a lot of it seems a bit weird. Adam tries on a pink wig and imagines himself wearing one of Cat’s skirts. Perhaps he’s a cross-dresser. Or maybe he’s gay. That would explain his pride in Liv’s success with men. And yet Adam is also a red-blooded love god who finds Cat wildly attractive. They book a hotel room and agree to pass a platonic night together with no touching. Who are they kidding?

They start an affair which escalates into ‘epic shags’. Cat wants to keep their romance quiet in case someone called Fiona finds out. Who is Fiona? During their next ‘epic shag’ the doorbell rings. Could it be Fiona? Yes, it is. Adam goes to the door while Cat hides in a cupboard. What if Fiona enters and spots her? But Fiona doesn’t enter. She goes away and Cat blames Adam. ‘You shut me in a cupboard for Fiona.’