Jonny Campbell

In Am I Being Unreasonable? (2022), a laugh does not always clear the discomfort from a scene. Jonny Campbell's direction is strongest when it lets that discomfort remain, giving the darker character scenes room without treating each joke as permission to relax. We felt uneasy after laughing, because those passages leave us unsure how warmly to regard the people who have amused us. The actors have made the difficult feelings convincing enough that we want to stay with them. It is good work, though the first series is too uneven to make every move between comedy and mystery convincing.

Comedy was part of his work early on, with Phoenix Nights (2001), before the feature Alien Autopsy (2006) and television assignments including Doctor Who (2010). In the Flesh (2013), a zombie drama with dark humour, offered another setting in which laughter and darker material had to coexist. Those credits make it difficult to draw a useful line between a comic phase and a serious one. The Casual Vacancy (2015) brought a large ensemble and shifting tones, while his work on Westworld (2016) took him into science fiction again. His focus on character-led stories gives us a better way of assessing the work than simply noting how many genres he has tried.

That approach serves Daisy May Cooper and Selin Hizli, the creators and stars of Am I Being Unreasonable?, particularly well when Campbell lets a difficult feeling hold our attention. The trouble comes when the series moves on before the performances have finished rewarding it: the mystery sometimes interrupts, and some jokes feel like interruptions too. The darker passages are often more assured than the openly comic ones, which can make a change of mood feel like an unwelcome interruption. We would like more patience with the actors at those points, rather than another reason to reconsider what sort of programme we are watching. Try the first series for Cooper and Hizli, but expect the mystery to get in their way.