This sitcom about a long-term relationship is vintage Moran, and unerringly captures the compromise needed to survive coupledom. I’ve never felt so seen
As we all know, romantic tales generally end with the wedding. And, as we all know equally well – or at least those who are married do – there are reasons for that. Dylan Moran’s new creation, Stuck (BBC Two), deftly illustrates them all in five short episodes (a quarter of an hour or so each) about the daily lives of Dan (Moran) and Carla (Morgana Robinson).
They are not technically married but have been together long enough to amount to the same thing. He is decidedly middle-aged (“Oh my God!” Carla gasps at one point as she grabs his head. “I’m holding something that was alive in the 70s. Were there dragons?” and his moobs are a matter of horrified fascination to them both), she is – crucially – about a decade younger. She has a zest for life, partly down to age, partly down to temperament. She would like to move to a nicer place – he probably would too, but the flat’s worth nothing – and maybe have a baby, or at least a cat, and is doing well at work. He, by the end of the first outing, has been fired from his job at an ad agency where he appears to have been so dissatisfied that this does not come as a surprise to anyone. “Don’t worry,” he tells her when he breaks the news. “You’ll take care of us.”
