Mr Bigstuff season two review: Danny Dyer's talent is wasted in this slight, forgettable comedy

Irish Independent

5 days ago

The Bafta winner's talents have long been underestimated, but his performance in season two of Mr Bigstuff can't make up for stiff script
Can there be anything more quintessentially Danny Dyer than Danny Dyer sitting on a tattered armchair on the street in his boxers and dressing gown, sucking Bloody Marys through a tube at breakfast time and singing along through a microphone to Copacabana by Barry Manilow on a Walkman (remember those?) he has retrieved from a neighbour's wheelie bin?
This is were we find Dyer's character, Lee Campbell, at the start of season two of Mr Bigstuff (Sky Max, Thursday, July 24) the broad, knockabout comedy created by Ryan Sampson.
Sampson co-stars as Lee's brother Glen (yes, that's Glen Campbell!), a meek carpet salesman whose life was turned upside down by the arrival of his previously estranged older sibling in season one.
There were more than a few raised eyebrows when Dyer won a Bafta earlier this year for his performance in Mr Bigstuff. It was a typical reaction from people who, whether blinded by ignorance or snobbishness, have been underrating Dyer as an actor almost from the beginning of his career.
He has repeatedly proved over the years that he's capable of much more than the stereotypical hardman performances he gave in a string of mostly awful films directed by Britflick geezer-gangster specialist Nick Love.
He was particularly outstanding in two early films: Human Traffic and novelist William Boyd's directorial debut The Trench (both 2009).
Harold Pinter saw something very special in Dyer and cast and directed him in three of his plays in the West End: Celebration, No Man's Land and The Homecoming, which transferred to Broadway.
The two men, an unlikely pair on the face of it (Dyer dubbed them 'the likely lad and the Nobel winner'), became close friends. Dyer considered Pinter his mentor and was hit so hard by his death that he says he 'went off the rails' for a time. He is currently developing a stage play about their relationship.
Dyer brought warmth, pathos and vulnerability to his role as kind-hearted Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter in EastEnders.
By common consent, he also gave the standout performance last year in the star-studded, gleefully bawdy Rivals, the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper's 1980s novel.
You expect certain things from a Cooper romp – chiefly sex, sex and more sex, and you certainly get it here – but what you don't expect is depth, nuance and poignancy.
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Dyer brings all three to his role as self-made electronics entrepreneur Freddie Jones, who is trapped in a loveless marriage and somewhat out of place in this sexual playground of the decadent upper classes who were born into wealth and privilege.
His tender, slowly developing relationship with lonely romantic novelist Lizzie Vereker, played by Katherine Parkinson, is in sharp contrast to the cartoonish antics going on around them.
Dyer probably deserved a Bafta nomination at the very least for Rivals, which will hopefully have changed quite a few people's narrow opinion of him.
The irony is that the role which actually won him a Bafta doesn't exactly push him out of his comfort zone.
Dyer is great fun as Lee. He handles the slapstick side of things very well, his comic timing is excellent, and his natural charisma and swagger dominate the screen.
But the laughs he generates are more down to him than to anything in the script, which is slight stiff. You are left with the feeling Dyer could do this sort of thing in his sleep.
Given all the other things he has done, it's a shame to see him revert to type – even if it is a comic variation on the kind of character he's played too many times before.
For what it's worth, Lee and Greg – having learned at the end of season one that their father is not dead after all, but simply ran out on them – set out to find him.
This involves tangling with an old associate their dad fleeced before running off with his wife, and Lee having a tryst with a boozy, oversexed pensioner (Rula Lenska).
Meanwhile, Greg's fiancee Kirsty (Harriet Webb), who is eager to get him into some bondage games, is facing blackmail from someone who photographed her and Lee kissing in her car.
Without the presence of Dyer, Mr Bigstuff would be instantly forgettable. With him, it's worth an extra star.