After several false starts, O-T Fagbenle’s satirical comedy finally arrives to shine new light on to the well-worn topic of celebrity excess and post-fame blues
You may know O-T Fagbenle from The Handmaid’s Tale, in which he gives a SAG award-nominated performance as June’s pre-Gilead husband, Luke. That was just another role compared with this. Maxxx is the passion project that the London-born Fagbenle has long wanted to make. After several false starts, it has finally made it to our screens, in a primetime Thursday evening slot on Channel 4, with the full series available to watch on All 4.
Fagbenle writes and stars as the title character, a washed-up boyband member who ekes out a living for himself and his adopted teenage son, Amit (Alan Asaad), with demeaning PAs in backwater nightclubs. Maxxx attempts to evade this bleak reality by abusing all manner of prescription pills and holding steadfast to the belief that he could win back his supermodel ex (played by a real-life supermodel, Jourdan Dunn), if only he were allowed to relaunch his music career. To do that, though, he is going to have to find a way of collaborating with Tamzin (Pippa Bennett-Warner), the uptight, bean-counting manager to whom he has been assigned by record company exec Don (Christopher Meloni).
