THE CURSE II

SUPERVISING ART DIRECTOR

Production Designer - ANNA SHELDRAKE

Director - JAMES DE FROND

Production company - CHANNEL 4 / SHINY BUTTON

Over to Channel 4 for the second series of The Curse, a comedic riff on a multimillion gold bullion heist pulled off by bungling misfits (loosely nodding to the 1983 Brinks-Mat robbery, which was turned into the recent well-received BBC thriller The Gold). Directed by James De Frond, it’s created by and stars the Bafta-winning People Just Do Nothing team (Steve Stamp, Allan Mustafa, Hugo Chegwin), with Tom Davis co-starring and co-writing.

At the end of last year’s first series (spoiler alert), Big Mick (Davis) was apprehended, Phil (Chegwin) was left for dead and hapless Albert (Mustafa), his tough, smart wife Tash (the glorious Emer Kenny) and her brother, Sidney (Stamp), escaped to the non-extradition “Costa del Crime” in Spain. This is where we rejoin them: pregnant Tash and Albert running the Golden Palms hotel, and Sidney operating a beach bar. The resting vibe is Sexy Beast with extra gormlessness and even pinker sunburn. And then things turn nasty.

The Curse is genuinely funny. The ineptitude of the thieves is set against the nastiness of the real villains (including Michael Smiley) and the cynicism of the police, led by Geoff Bell in dishevelled, 60-a-day Sweeney mode. In Big Mick, Davis has created a touching comedy ogre – this time squeezed into disquietingly tight beachwear (my eyes!), but still with an extraordinary voice that sounds like he’s gargling marbles and Evo-Stik. If you haven’t seen The Curse, check it out: the first series (just) edges it, but it’s still (pun intended) comedy gold.