--- title: "Stath Lets Flats" year: 2018 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/stath-lets-flats" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 75 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-17T14:50:01.155399+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T14:50:01.766124+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Stath Lets Flats (2018) Created by Jamie Demetriou · 30m · MPA TV-MA · Comedy **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 75 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* A man who cannot show a flat, describe a flat or say the word flat, given a job doing all three > Jamie Demetriou’s lettings agent is one of the great sitcom idiots, and the show around him is sillier, sweeter and more carefully written than it looks. It is nearly all one joke, and by the third series the joke has softened, but we laughed until it hurt. ## Synopsis Stath Charalambos (Jamie Demetriou) is a lettings agent in London who cannot let a flat. He works at the small family agency run by his father, Vasos (Christos Stergioglou), alongside his sister Sophie (Natasia Demetriou), who would rather be dancing than answering the phone, and his colleague Al (Al Roberts), who thinks Stath is the finest agent in the business. Carole (Katy Wix) sits in the corner and wants to be left alone; Marcus (Alex Beckett) can actually do the job and knows it. In the first episode Stath shows a couple round a flat with a pigeon loose in it, talks himself out of the letting, and returns to the office certain it went well. ## Review Stath Charalambos cannot do his job. He is a lettings agent in London, in the family firm run by his father, and across eighteen half-hour episodes he does not let a single flat without something going wrong. Jamie Demetriou created him, writes him and plays him, and *Stath Lets Flats* is one of the funniest British sitcoms of its decade. It is also built almost entirely on one man being stupid in a particular way, and for some viewers twenty minutes will be plenty. Stath is not cruel, lazy or unhappy. He is delighted with himself, and he speaks a version of English in which the words are mostly right and the order and the endings are not. Demetriou builds sentences that start as sales patter, wander into something half remembered from a film, and finish on a word that has no business being there. The pigeon in the first episode would be a cheap sight gag elsewhere; here it is a man trying to look professional while a bird refuses to cooperate. Natasia Demetriou plays his sister Sophie, as dim as he is but softer, and the two have a shorthand only real siblings could manage. Al Roberts is Al, Stath’s colleague and devoted friend, so gentle he gets a laugh by simply agreeing. Katy Wix, as Carole, gets some of the best lines by looking as though she wishes she had not heard them. Alex Beckett’s Marcus is the one agent who can work; Beckett plays his contempt as tired patience. Christos Stergioglou, as Vasos, is the still centre: a father who loves his children and knows exactly what they are. Tom Kingsley and Andrew Gaynord direct it straight, with no wink to camera. Craig Dean Devine and Will Hanke shoot the office and the flats in grey daylight and strip lighting, hand-held but never so much that you notice. Richard Drew and Hannah Purdy Foggin’s production design gives the agency the right shabbiness: beige carpet, window cards curling at the corners, a kettle nobody has descaled. Ashley White, Phil Hignett and Mark Williams cut quickly between people and slowly within a speech, so Stath can run a sentence into the ground before anyone rescues him. Erran Baron Cohen’s music is a bouncy theme, then mostly silence. We laughed harder at this than at any sitcom in some years, and twice we paused an episode because we had missed the next line. It was never the pratfalls. It was Al’s face when Stath says something he cannot possibly believe and believes anyway, and Sophie announcing a plan as if it were already in the diary. The show is generous to its idiots, and we ended up fond of every one. It is one joke, told with great skill, and anyone not laughing in the first five minutes will not be laughing in the ninetieth. Some scenes, mostly in the first series, push Stath’s incompetence so far that the only place left to go is louder. And the third series, two years after the second, softens. It wants more for its characters than it used to, and it gets a little less funny each time it stops to want it. The last few episodes are warmer than they are sharp. Critics reached early for *The Office*: a small workplace, a boss nobody respects, a camera that stays close. But Stath is not David Brent. Brent wanted to be liked and was not; Stath is liked, by Al at least, and has never wondered whether he should be. The housing satire several reviews praised is thinner than they suggested. The show knows London lettings are a racket, but it is not about rent. It is about a family that has found a way to be happy while failing. Watch it two or three episodes at a time; they are short and the accumulation is the point. Start with the first series and stop, if you must, after the second. If you are irritated ten minutes in, we would not argue. It is not for everyone. It was for us. *Fi1m score 82, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Stath Lets Flats, and the praise gathers almost entirely around Jamie Demetriou. Reviewers single out his odd, mangled way with language and his awkward physical comedy, with The Times picking out the pigeon-catching scene as a highlight. Stath is described as a real creation rather than a sitcom type, and his sister Natasia gets warm notices alongside him. There is broad agreement that the satire of London’s rental market lands, and that the small, specific details of a sheltered Greek-Cypriot family are what lift the show above formula. The reservations are about the slapstick. The Guardian and The Telegraph, both writing on the first episode, find it heavy-handed and a little unadventurous, and The Times allows that it could grate. The spread is narrow, with nobody negative, and there is a clear pattern: the earliest reviews are the coolest, while assessments written after the series had run are the warmest. ### Reviews we read (9) - **Vulture**, Kathryn VanArendonk (85/100, inferred): The critic hails the series as the first show in nearly 20 years to feel like a legitimate successor to The Office, thanks to its distinctive, endearing characters and workplace dynamics. It singles out the precise, specific details of the characters' sheltered immigrant experience and goofy earnestness for particular praise. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/stath-lets-flats-hbo-max-recommendation.html) - **The i Paper**, Elisa Bray (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the new Channel 4 sitcom for capturing the absurdity of London’s property market through the chaotic lettings agency antics. It highlights the fast-paced energy and the lead performance by Jamie Demetriou alongside his sister Natasia. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/stath-lets-flats-channel-4-review-london-property-market-estate-agent-jamie-demetriou-sitcom-170090) - **Evening Standard**, Guy Pewsey (70/100, inferred): The series delivers golden moments of classic British humour through the woefully incompetent agent and his gormless sister, with strong physical comedy and likeable characters despite the discomfort element. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/stath-lets-flats-a-woefully-incompetent-lettings-agent-delivers-golden-moments-of-comedy-a3873551.html) - **The Times**, Carol Midgley (★★★☆☆): The slapstick-heavy comedy has potential to grate but skewers rip-off merchants in the rental market; the lead has funny bones and physical comedy scenes like the pigeon catch are highlights. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/tv-review-stath-lets-flats-the-people-vs-the-nhs-who-gets-the-drugs-n296b9fm7) - **The Guardian** (60/100, inferred): The critic finds plenty to like in the characters, performances and observations of the housing crisis and Greek-Cypriot community, but notes a heavy reliance on slapstick and physical comedy that leaves the show feeling damp and in need of another viewing before committing. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jun/27/stath-lets-flats-review-finding-the-funny-in-generation-rents-plight) - **The Telegraph** (3/5): The critic sees potential in this sitcom about a bungling Greek-Cypriot lettings agent but finds the first episode a bit unadventurous despite good supporting performances. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/stath-flats-channel-4-review/) - **Collider**, Joanna Orland (90/100, inferred): The critic hails Stath Lets Flats as one of the silliest and funniest British comedies in recent years. She singles out Jamie Demetriou's performance, particularly his strange use of language and awkward physicality, for praise. [Read](https://collider.com/stath-lets-flats-tv-series/) - **Den of Geek**, Louisa Mellor (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the series a brilliant antidote to bland, cookie-cutter sitcoms, praising its precise, unexpected writing and performances full of detail and specificity. It singles out the inimitable creation of Stath and the show's devotion to genuine humour over formula for praise. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/stath-lets-flats-a-brilliant-sitcom-antidote-to-bland-comedy/) - **NME**, Mark Beaumont (80/100, inferred): The critic argues that the series brilliantly deploys arrested development as its core comedic conceit, transposing playground behaviours into the adult world of a letting agency. It singles out Jamie Demetriou's tour de force performance and the satirical fit with the UK housing market for praise. [Read](https://www.nme.com/features/opinion/stath-lets-flats-arrested-development-father-ted-3096891) ## Details - **Created by:** Jamie Demetriou - **Creator:** Jamie Demetriou - **Director:** Tom Kingsley, Andrew Gaynord - **Writer:** Jamie Demetriou - **Cinematography:** Will Hanke, Craig Dean Devine - **Editor:** Ashley White, Mark Williams, Phil Hignett - **Music:** Erran Baron Cohen - **Production design:** Hannah Purdy Foggin, Richard Drew - **Producer:** Seb Barwell - **Cast:** Jamie Demetriou as Stath Charalambos; Natasia Demetriou as Sophie Charalambos; Christos Stergioglou as Vasos Charalambos; Katy Wix as Carole; Al Roberts as Al; Alex Beckett as Marcus; Bethany Antonia as Leanne; Kim Benson as Bev - **Runtime:** 30m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 27 June 2018 - **Genres:** Comedy - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPPQmdAZQ5g ## Where to watch in the US - BritBox: streaming, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AU, CA, GB, IE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Office* (2001): The workplace comedy everyone compared it to, and crueller about its boss than this is - *People Just Do Nothing* (2014): Another London family of the confidently useless, running a pirate radio station from a flat - *Toast of London* (2012): Matt Berry’s actor is Stath’s vain, booming cousin; the voice work is the joke - *What We Do in the Shadows* (2019): Natasia Demetriou, as a vampire, with the same gift for saying nonsense as fact - *Los Espookys* (2019): Spanish-language deadpan about friends who stage horror for hire; gentle, odd and exact --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/stath-lets-flats