Trying review

Not even directing from a far-off bedroom could keep this Apple TV+ comedy from chronicling a roller-coaster adoption journey with care and attention.

All of life can be found in a good sitcom

Highbrow dramas and earnest documentaries are often held up as mirrors but shrewd historians know to look at comedy.

Trying, Apple TV+ review

Esther Smith triumphs anew in adoption-centred comedy-drama.

Backstage with... stars of parenting comedy Trying

An interview with Rafe Spall and Esther Smith.

Trying Series 2 review

With Esther Smith and Rafe Spall back in delightful form, it would be hard to find a better pair to build a heartwarming comedy around.

Trying 2 review

In an era of TV/streaming shows celebrating diversity, Andy Wolton's programme feels like something of a throwback to a Richard Curtis-style period when London was populated entirely by white people, i.e. never.

Rafe Spall, Esther Smith still 'Trying'

Jason Ross and Nikki Newman are back for Season 2 of Trying - and all is right in their world. Well, almost.

Trying is Apple TV+'s first dedicated comedy, apparently, and rather good for what it is. What it is is something about a north London couple trying to adopt, and a refreshingly non-Richard Curtis London couple, for what's sure to be a global viewership, or as much as Apple TV+ can depend on a global viewership, which is frankly not yet much.

It's funny, genuinely, with some very good lines. Rafe Spall as Jason excels as one half of the trying couple, lugubrious and staunchly anti-intellectual, yet half-wise. Where it falls down, and certainly not with the actor, Esther Smith (Nikki), is in the tweeness of characterisation. In 2005 film critic Nathan Rabin coined, not entirely unkindly, the phrase "manic pixie dream girl" for a certain type of heroine, and Nikki's certainly that - dungarees, breezy kookiness, squirrels and rainbows.

Unfortunately, this all spills over into the adoption process, with Nikki constantly trying to better herself (reading Dostoevsky, attending lectures with three highlighter pens) rather than Just Being Herself. Which will win in the long run. I'm sorry, it's rather good, but it irritated, with its cliched (bad) books versus (good) carefree-beach vibe, when there's no quandary. It's not a zero-sum game.