Sophie Willan’s larger-than-life comedy creation is Alma, a spirited, optimistic woman with a chaotic childhood, and an excellent line in fabulous furry pink coats. She’s doing her best despite life cruelly not living up to her glitzy expectations. In autobiographical flashbacks she’s darkly brutal – calling herself “the baby from Trainspotting, if she lived”. She was a latchkey kid living with drug addicts, with a Mum unable to care for her. Because of this she was largely truant, but famously once turned up to school drunk wearing only a bikini. Her life is hard, but she’s surrounded by powerful, extraordinary women. These are her outrageous Grandma Joan (a brilliantly cast Lorraine Ashbourne) wearing leopard print making fried spam, her big, butch, unapologieticaly sexy best friend Leanne (played by Jayde Adams in her element), and her Mum Lin (played by Siobhan Finneran, guest starring ill-fitting dentures) is a recovering heroin addict and arsonist dealing with drug-induced psychosis. Her family makes me think Alma’s own determined resilience is probably 50% genetic, and 50% learned the hard way because of her disrupted childhood.
Alma wants to be an actress but she’s got no qualifications, no job, and no money. She’s also dealing with a messy breakup from slightly pathetic drug-dealer Anthony. Alma pines for a ‘real’ family. It’s been 5 years since her Grandma saw her Mum, so not only does she plan on getting her life together, but she wants her family back together too. Despite these set-backs that seem overwhelming, Alma is still confident, and sweetly optimistic, perhaps naively so. This makes her all the more adorable and relatable.
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