Watching: The Cleaner

2021, Amazon/Brit Box 

This awkward British comedy series is one of my walk-in, walk-out series that Marmy was primarily watching, but caught my attention enough, for most episodes. It concerns Paul "Wicky" Wickstead (Greg Davies, Taskmaster), a crime scene cleaner in the west of England, but technically he cleans up what's left behind from any death scene, crime or not. Makes sense; someone has to do that work so why divide the expertise? Natural death and be just as horrific and messy as violent death.

Each episode has him bump into someone who is not entirely happy for his presence, them interrupting or delaying his actual cleaning. And most of these antagonists are foot-stompingly frustrating, which is usually the cause for me to stop watching any given show, but this time, I surprisingly endeared to the idea.

Wicky is not without his own faults and there probably a lot of reasons he is suited to this mostly solitary work. He is awkward, stuck in the past, and doubly stuck in a routine that is going nowhere. I work in technology, probably the training ground for being awkward, and being stuck in routines? Nooooo, not relating to that at all.

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It turns out that this show does what I like best about British comedy. It gives you weird characters doing awkward things, some long drawn out conversations (almost all the situations are dependent on the talking, less so on the physical comedy), a dash of the ludicrous and a heavy dose of heartfelt revelations -- after all in every episode he is talking to someone who has lost someone.

Best ludicrous scene? In the first episode, the murderer (Helena Bonham Carter, The Crown) shows up and takes him captive - kind of. She's ... in need of a Number 2 (what are you, 12?) and demands Wicky be in the room with her (horrified emojii) and it evolves into them both singing "It Had to be You" and the scene switches to a musical number depiction, but with toilet.

Best conversation? Terence the writer (David Mitchell, Peep Show), whose grandmother died in her favourite chair (spontaneous combustion???), just wants to write his scene and everything Wicky is doing is just interrupting his work, and more importantly, his delicate emotional state. David Mitchell is peak David Mitchell here -- pedantic, insulting and outrageously angry about the littlest of things.

Weirdest one? Yeah, that's debatable as all of them are weird situations, but The Influencer who has someone he knows die while recording himself becomes a rather surreal episode. Wicky is not at all an empathetic person but seems to always empathetically understand these people in pain. This disconnected (but always connected) non-binary 80s obsessed kid (Layton Williams, Bad Education) pushes even Wicky's boundaries and yet, he deals with the situation with sympathy and caring. We are meant to hate influencers; I don't think Wicky understands hate. Sure, he dislikes most people but hate... ?

Like The Detectorists before it, I found this weird little show about weird (not little) people endearing, charming and full of snorts out loud.

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