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From her boss’s jibes to a non-committal ‘boyfriend’, Aidy Bryant is tired of being shamed in this thoughtful, witty adaptation of Lindy West’s memoir
Although it aired in the US in March, and a trailer for its second season is already online, the first season of Shrill (BBC Three) has only just made its way to the UK. This sneakily affecting comedy is a loose adaptation of Lindy West’s memoir, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman; audiences familiar with her journalism, particularly her astonishing segment for the podcast This American Life about meeting her online troll, will find pleasure in spotting the bits borrowed from real life. But there is much to enjoy everywhere, in ways that slowly reveal themselves. This is a show worth investing in, rather than an instant fix.
Shrill is a comedy in the way that The Bisexual is a comedy, or Barry is a comedy, or Russian Doll is a comedy: you will end up laughing, but not very much, and not all that often, although that is not necessarily to its detriment. Aidy Bryant stars as Annie, a journalist on the up in Portland, Oregon, who picks unhappily at a plastic container filled with “thin menu” slabs of things that are supposed to be pancakes, but look more like courtroom sketches of them. When she goes for coffee, a stranger – a fitness instructor – grabs her and reels off a best-of list of patronising comments: “Your wrists are tiny. You actually have a really small frame,” followed by a suckerpunch: “You could be so pretty.” Annie’s dismissive sort-of boyfriend, Ryan, is the kind of man whose idea of romance involves a text that reads: “Fuck?” without even the good manners to add a kiss at the end. Continue reading...