Actress and writer Sharon Horgan has launched her new semi-autobiographical comedy series Youth on HBO Max, tackling personal fears about ageing and lost confidence.
Daily Mail television critic Christopher Stevens awarded the series a five-star review, describing the individual scenes as hilariously funny with savage wit, while noting the overall effect across the first two half-hour episodes remains brutal.
At 56 years old, Horgan admitted feeling her age and fearing she might be over the hill. In a note sent to reviewers, the writer and star stated that the show feels extra personal, with every scene in the drama-comedy stark with fear over vanity, body image, and growing older.
Career slump and workplace struggles
In Youth, Horgan plays Alex, a divorcee who suffers a breakdown driven by a complete loss of self-confidence after her bookshop goes bust. Forced to work as a literary agent for her best friend, Alex finds herself managing clients who are drunks, bullies, show-offs, or borderline senile.
Alex spends her days taking the flak, performing dirty work, and mentoring office interns who are incapable of making coffee, which Stevens noted represented the fun part of her day.
Horgan, an Irish actress, writer, and producer, built a reputation over the past decade as a leading voice in television comedy. She co-wrote and starred in acclaimed series such as Catastrophe alongside Rob Delaney and the BBC comedy Motherland.
Family tensions and dating misadventures
At home, Alex is a slave to her ungrateful 18-year-old son, Ruari, played by Aran Murphy. In public, Ruari behaves like a bonobo on amphetamines, baring his backside at his school graduation and eating with his bare hands at a family celebration dinner, before retreating to lie in bed in private.
When Ruari heads off to university, Alex attempts to rekindle her love life, resulting in a blind date with a white-haired man played by Tim McInnerny who looks much older than she feels. After Alex blurted out asking if he still worked and kept busy, she learned he was a friend of her boss who assumed he was doing her a favour by having fumbly sex with her.
When Alex asked if the meeting was a pity date, the man leered that he would not say that, despite clearly regarding it as one.
Tim McInnerny is a veteran British actor known for classic television roles, while HBO Max is the global streaming platform hosting the new series.
Star-studded guest cast and romantic troubles
The supporting cast features Anne Reid in a cameo as a romantic novelist turning to hardcore porn in her dotage. Reid's character cannot understand why anyone would be offended by her graphic fantasy about a randy pioneer and a love-starved Native American girl, tentatively titled Wagon Burner, though the author now prefers The Squaw Squawked. Harriet Walter plays her bitter daughter Livonia, who expects Alex to make her mother a national treasure.
Homeland star Damian Lewis sends himself up as an impossibly conceited actor with literary pretensions. Fellow Homeland actor Rupert Friend plays Alex's on-off boyfriend Patrick, who floats through life free from the burdens of teenage children, elderly parents, or financial worries.
Resenting Patrick's total lack of angst, Alex wails, "I want a relationship with a grown adult man," to which Patrick grins, "Me too. After this." The first two half-hour episodes of Youth are currently streaming on HBO Max.
