Let’s get this out of the way now; given his recent travails with restaurants, there is something beautifully ironic about James Corden attempting to relaunch his acting career as a head chef. And no, there aren’t any recycled jokes in Mammals – unless you count the distinct whiff of Woody Allen which pervades this relationship farce.
We mention Corden’s recent difficulties because unfortunately they bring a certain celebrity baggage which makes Mammals and his character Jamie Buckingham really difficult to engage with. That’s not helped by the writing; for all Jez Butterworth’s playwriting smarts, it’s tonally all over the place.
In the first episode, we meet the jokey Jamie and his exotic, pregnant French wife Amandine (Melia Kreiling) on a Cornish retreat (the upper middle class entitlement in this show makes Richard Curtis films seem like kitchen sink dramas). Their next door neighbour is Tom Jones. The actual Tom Jones, for no apparent reason. And then Amandine has a traumatic late miscarriage.
Yet this is just a fleeting Sad Event through which Jamie can get hold of his wife’s phone and discover she’s been cheating on him. And off we go with six short episodes of seemingly articulate people being driven mad by love and lust (it’s much like Closer in that regard). Jamie tries to find out who has cuckolded him, while launching a restaurant and dealing with their daughter – the latter scenario criminally underdeveloped part of this caper.
Amandine, meanwhile, comes across as a total monster, wilfully blowing up her relationship. The twist in the last minutes is a late sop to some of her motivations, but it’s impossible to care about her.
Thankfully, there is a far more interesting female character in Jamie’s sister Lou, played by the always brilliant Sally Hawkins. On occasion, Mammals dips into more surreal territory and Lou’s intermittent journeys into an imagined world tease out some fascinating ideas about emotional and psychological affairs.
But this is James Corden’s show, ultimately, and while as it gets darker he does become more convincing – a cheeky chappie who realises he’s been living a lie – if you really want a new series exploring a chef in the middle of a personal crisis then The Bear on Disney+ should be top of your menu. This is mere hors d’oeuvre.
All six episodes of Mammals are on Amazon Prime from Friday.
