LONDON: Ever since “The Office” set the gold standard for mockumentary comedy (on television, at least, with “This is Spinal Tap” still the benchmark for movies), it’s been a brave writer or performer willing to dip their toe in that pool. After all, there have been few shows capable of matching Ricky Gervais’ original BBC series — perhaps only the US adaptation, and “Parks and Recreation” even manage to get close to the lightning in a bottle captured by Gervais and co-creator Stephen Merchant.
“Hard Cell” is set in fictional women’s prison HMP Woldsley. (Supplied)
So Catherine Tate (herself an ex-cast member of the US “Office”) deserves credit for her ambition, if nothing else. In Netflix’s “Hard Cell,” set in fictional women’s prison HMP Woldsley, the British actor not only co-writes and co-directs, she also finds time to play six characters, including governor Laura, guard Marco, a trio of inmates, and one of their mothers. Laura firmly believes creativity is the path to reform, so she’s hired British soap actor Cheryl Fergison (playing herself), a star of “Eastenders,” to stage a musical for the inmates.
Laura’s deputy Dean (Christian Brassington) thinks the whole thing is ridiculous, so he does his best impression of Tim/Jim from “The Office” and consoles himself by playing to the film crew with a series of poop jokes.
Hard Cell is created by Catherine Tate. (Supplied)
Despite its aspirations, “Hard Cell” lacks the subtlety and (ironically) the self-awareness that made “The Office” so great. Tate’s enthusiasm is unrelenting, but the characters she throws herself into are too lazily stereotypical, too one-dimensional to be anything other than vehicles for fart jokes. Each Tate character has a single, defining motif, and little else beyond the fact we know it’s the same actor.
Mockumentaries are so versatile when done well — they offer opportunities for actors to do wonderful things, for long-form jokes to earn their punchlines, and for scripts to be belly achingly clever in their nuanced sophistication. “Hard Cell,” on the other hand, feels like an overwrought, overfinanced vanity project, with nobody willing (or perhaps brave enough) to reign in its creator.