Man Down (2013-2017) TV Drinking Game
Down a Shot: for every act of inaptitude on display either from Dan or his equally inapt partners in crime, Jo & Brian
Down a Shot: for every time Dan accidently injures himself. There’s quite a lot of splinters and swollen appendages.
Raise a Glass: In memory of Rik Mayall.
By: Vidal D’Costa (A Toast) –
Man Down serves as a guide on what not to do when life knocks you down.
This sitcom revolves around Dan Davies, a drama teacher who is quite the man-child. He willingly lives with family members who are possibly insane, is a desperate simp (as the kids would put it nowadays), is hung up on an ex-girlfriend who wants nothing to do with him, and constantly finds new ways to bungle up his personal and work life in the most epically tragic ways.
More often than not, either due to his own ineptitude or that of the people surrounding him, he finds himself in the most humiliating and bordering on gross situations. Whether it is accidentally dousing an entire nightclub in copious amounts of his own… ahem, ‘bladder fluid’ while on a date or gatecrashing a funeral and thus incurring the wrath of a football-crazy mob while babysitting a student whose mum is serving a jail term, Dan Davies has mastered the art of screwing himself over!
A Toast
While the concept of an inapt man-child trying to overcome his issues and being outdone by his own ineptitude has been done to death time and again in many a British comedy (most notably in the UK version of The Office with iconic man-child David Brent), Man Down is not your run of the mill sitcom. What sets it apart is Greg Davies’ unique writing and execution. Davies incorporates a lot of his personal stories into each episode, resulting in plotlines that start out in a normal fashion but take absurd comical turns with outlandish character decisions and twists that will hit you in the face like a piping hot jam pie (watch the show, you’ll know what I mean).
Dan is also not as obnoxious as other childish characters before him and a lot of his shortcomings are due to his lack of self-awareness and a strong case of foot in mouth disease. Simply put, he is so pathetic that one can’t help but feel sorry for the gentle giant of a man and develop a soft spot for him as the show progresses. His loneliness and need for companionship is only further emphasized in scenes such as his meltdown in the woods while attending a wedding in the series finale of the second season.
The writing isn’t predictable, either, and the unexpected twists also lend a sense of surrealism to the show. And if you know me, I’m a sucker for surreal comedy (the more surreal the comedy, the better it is, I say!). However, despite all these bizarre, surreal touches, the sitcom also manages to have one foot firmly affixed in reality so the viewers don’t find themselves lost in a fever dream and thus can still relate to some of the situations that the characters find themselves in.
For fans of Greg Davies’ standup, a lot of the material will feel familiar to his stand-up routines, from the self depreciating tone of the humour to the dark comedic elements. Considering Davies was a teacher for 13 years in real life, he is truly in his element playing Dan, and his interactions with his students are the highlight of this show. I’m pretty sure his rants, his back and forths with the students, as well as his attempts to make learning fun by making up a fun roleplay game called ‘Space Mission’ will feel funny and relatable to teachers watching this.
At times, this show even feels like an even more outlandish, satirical extension of Davies’ real life, especially if you’re familiar with the nail-biting tales that he weaves on The Graham Norton Show or on panel shows like ‘Would I Lie to You?’ which seep into some episodes of Man Down as well (the line between reality and absurd comical fantasy is seriously blurred when it comes to this man). There’s also a generous sprinkling of toilet humour and physical slapstick, and if you’ve a childish sense of humour like me, that will never get old!
Roisin Conaty and Mike Wozniak play Jo and Brian, respectively, who are Dan’s only chums and are equally inept at being grown-ups and who, like Dan, also can’t get their lives together. Brian is facing marriage problems while Jo is in between jobs and coming up with harebrained schemes in order to stay afloat. They’re often roped into Dan’s various shenanigans and are utterly useless at dishing out advice of any kind to him (I’ve decided to christen them ‘the advisory board of inept tossers’). It even feels as if Jo and Dan share a brain cell!
Rik Mayall plays Dan’s father who is quite possibly off his rocker and who resorts to bizarre acts of fatherly love such as pouncing at Dan while decked in a bear costume for no reason… or pouncing on Dan while dressed as the ghost of his ex-girlfriend for no reason. The late Mayall feels tailor-made for the part due to his strong resemblance to Davies and his trademark manic energy. He is sadly absent in the later seasons due to the actor’s untimely death after season 1, but Stephanie Cole more than makes up for his absence as Nesta, Dan’s potty-mouth aunt who is a hunting enthusiast, and who, along with his mum, tries to control almost every aspect of his life including his love life, much to his chagrin.
Jeanie Spark as the straight-faced head teacher Emma Lipsey with her no-nonsense attitude serves as the perfect foil to Dan’s childish antics. Roisin Conaty has impeccable comic timing and plays the ditzy and lovable Jo effortlessly. Her camaraderie with co-star Greg Davies is charming and Dan and Jo’s friendship had me more emotionally invested in it than any of Dan’s romantic relationships. It reminded me of the camaraderie shared by Ricky Gervais and Ashley Jensen in Extras as the pair (who are best mates off screen as well) play off each other very well.
Special mention to Madeleine Harris who plays a kid literally named Karen who is actually the kid version of a Karen and Alfie Davis as Dennis, the loud kid who probably has anger issues. Both child actors are spot on with their comic timing.
However, I must caution you that the characters in this probably wouldn’t get away with half the things they say and do in today’s atmosphere of cancel culture and political correctness. There are characters like the tailor in Dan’s small town who displays extremely homophobic and transphobic behaviour and hurls all sorts of slurs at Dan after he catches him accidentally wearing his mum’s knickers.
One of the episodes in season 2 even pokes fun at PC culture as Dan is sent to ‘political correctness camp’ by his head teacher/crush, Emma for a misinformed antic in class which makes him come off as a homophobe. The results of this episode are hilarious as he tries his best to be a feminist and try to ‘shatter barriers’ and break gender norms much to the chagrin of his mum and aunt, but instead ends up wrecking households and accidentally offending even more people. Season 3 might even offend Americans as it takes the piss out of the tedious visa procedure of the country, the American Dream itself, and in one comical bit, the American affinity for Nickelback. There’s even jabs at the post-9/11 attitude of Americans at a consulate resorting to casual Islamophobia!
Verdict
If you are a person who is easily offended and cannot take a joke, than I would strongly recommend that you stay away from this show which has its fair share of slurs, cuss words and phrases that may be too vanilla to be heard on anything other than good old British television. But if you’re quite the opposite and love a good old fashioned comedy of errors with cartoonish characters who gradually grow on you despite their harrowing shortcomings, than by all means, binge all 4 seasons to your heart’s content!
