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Pulling

Louise (Rebekah Staton), Billy (Paul Kaye), Karen (Tanya Franks), Karl (Cavan Clerkin), Donna (Sharon Horgan)
  • Posted at 5:30pm
  • 22 May 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 5 comments

Consider this: we live in a world where the risible Two Pints of Lager… exists and where the uniquely brilliant Pulling doesn't. Not any more, anyway, not since it was axed by BBC3, home of Two Pints. Even the baffling Ideal is still rumbling along on the same channel. Why?

But Pulling was allowed a swan song, an hour-long special (on 17 May). In this case special means "last one ever", an unpalatable fact made all the more difficult to swallow by the announcer, who did the introduction and called it "home-grown comedy genius". Rub it in, why don't you?

Pulling, in case you've never seen it, and you probably haven't, is a splendidly filthy comedy. It's Peep Show with girls and it makes Sex and the City look like Last of the Summer Wine.

Its driving force was the marvellous Sharon Horgan, who co-wrote the series (with Dennis Kelly) and starred as Donna, the fulcrum of a group of hapless female friends whose encounters with men were routinely disastrous.

Pulling was as honestly mucky and funny as The Thick of It, which is moving from BBC4 to BBC2 and has been adapted into a film. Yet Pulling gets scrapped. Oh, the horror.

In the final episode, Donna and her friends Karen and Louise (Tanya Franks and Rebekah Staton, both terrific) appeared to be settled with a trio of ghastly men.

But that would be too simple. What followed was a festival of unprintable, unrepeatable pitch-black comedy. Pulling, I shall miss you.

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Comments

  • Posted on 26 May 2009
  • at 1:16pm
  • by gupe_box

Argh Two Pints has gone wayyy downhill over the past two series. Personally I love Ideal, although it's definitely something you have to have watched from the start to understand it. Pulling is fantastic, Donna is hilarious.

  • Posted on 26 May 2009
  • at 1:00pm
  • by DoctorDigital-RT

FAO Baz - If it hasn't fully loaded on the first scan, it might be that your aerial wasn't picking up a signal or is not strong enough. Try again and rescan and see if all the channels are then picked up.

  • Posted on 24 May 2009
  • at 3:12pm
  • by Baz

What a stirling piece of advice concerning the transmitter change in the letters page of the May 9-15th edition. I followed your advice and retuned my set in order to match the channel numbers that the Radio Times has decided, in their majestic fashion, to list. I now have fewer channels and I no longer have a TV guide. Well done! A lesson learned is that you should not fix something that is not broken and not to take any heed of unasked advice. Thank you very much.

Baz

  • Posted on 23 May 2009
  • at 10:43pm
  • by Lisa

you fools you fools

can't believe this has been cancelled

  • Posted on 23 May 2009
  • at 4:45pm
  • by MazY

It strikes me that you have become incapable of writing something positive in your entries without staining it with something negative. Over these past few months, you seem to have gone from being mildly humerous and elightening at times, to just plainly bitter.

I get the sense that in your pursuit of trying to become renowned for your incisive reviews, you've really just managing to persuade people to avoid reading your entries. Lord knows that the world is depressing enough at the moment, without your adding to it.

You don't like Ideal, or Two Pints? Great. We don't really need to know as you crowbar your contempt into a piece about 'Pulling'.

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