BEING HUMAN

Writer: Toby Whithouse
Director: Declan O'Dwyer

Cast: Guy Flanagan (Mitchell), Russell Tovey (George), Andrea Riseborough (Annie), Claire Foy (Julia) & Adrian Lester (Herrick)

Two friends (who happen to be a vampire and a werewolf), decide to move into a house together – unaware the property is haunted by a ghost…

I know, I know: the synopsis brings to mind an atrocious Rentaghost-style show, written by someone with the desire to write a monster-based series, who just decided to throw everything into the melting plot. Surely Being Human will gorge on its own gimmicky excess, revealing itself to be an ill-conceived "high-concept" bore.

But no; far from it, actually. Creator Toby Whithouse (Doctor Who/Hotel Babylon) shows just the right amount of writing skill to make this on-the-surface stupid premise really work – thanks to textured characters, a strong narrative, a few tense/scary sequences, and often sublime dialogue.

Mitchell (Guy Flanagan) is a thin, quirkily cool young man, who wouldn't look out of place fronting an indie band. He's also a vampire, whose urges get the better of him one evening and he bites a visitor called Lauren Drake.

George (Russell Tovey) is Mitchell's slightly-pudgy, gawky best friend. He's also a werewolf, and spends every Full Moon naked in the middle of a forest, as his body painfully contorts into a lycanthrope.

Both men work as porters in a Bristol hospital, and struggle to maintain a normal existence (i.e, "be human"), without indulging their natural instincts. Their latest bid for ordinariness involves moving in together as housemates; to watch TV, eat takeaway and general slob around like regular twentysomethings...

After settling on a "creepy" house nobody else will buy, they soon realize it's because their new abode is home to a restless spirit called Annie (Andrea Riseborough), who initially tries to scare them away, but ultimately becomes their friend when she realizes they can actually see here – and are weirder than she is!

Being Human is, at heart, your basic house-share comedy – although it's far from sitcom fare like Friends, Men Behaving Badly or Rising Damp. The trio's dysfunction is that they're unlike ordinary people, so they quickly bond with each other – particularly Annie, who has spent months cooped-up indoors scaring away potential house-buyers. For her, life really was over (literally!), so the arrival of Mitchell and George reinvigorates her.

The real delight of Being Human came from the performances. Russell Tovey was particularly engaging as George; a nerdy nice guy who went "missing" two years ago on account of his (assumed) attack by a werewolf, and consequently ended a relationship with an attractive girl called Julia (Claire Foy). Tovey's a bundle of energy, neatly tempered by a quiet, emotional side.

Tovey's a genuinely delightful screen presence, being initially irritated by their ghostly "squatter", and stuck in internal conflict with his inner monster. The episode's standout sequence, where George becomes trapped in a room with his sweetheart, minutes away from turning into a ravenous werewolf and tearing her limb from limb, is particularly gripping and marvelously acted by Tovey.

Guy Flanagan is a pleasant, laconic presence – given the lion's share of the inevitable rib-poking comments ("I'm older than I look..."), and introduces us to the episode's main subplot: a secretive culture of vampires, led by Hustle's Adrian Lester as Herrick, who are plotting to takeover the world – in the storyline's one bow to genre cliché.

Andrea Riseborough arrives as a perky, northern, slightly annoying presence, but her spectral character Annie soon becomes quite touching and soulful – not to mention an eventual life-saver. I was a little disappointed they didn't have her do more "ghostly" things (not even a single walk through a wall), but that was perhaps a result of a tight budget...

That's not to say Being Human looked cheap, though. Directed by Declan O'Dwyer (Wire In The Blood), the Bristol locations were picturesque and the production had a glossy polish throughout. In terms of special effects, most of the budget was seemingly blown on George's opening transformation sequence – which owed a huge debt to An American Werewolf In London, and was a very impressive homage.

I did have a few small complaints: the fact both Mitchell and George work as hospital porters seems very restricting (certainly if any more episodes are forthcoming), it wasn't laugh-out-loud funny for a comedy-drama, and the overarching theme that these characters are struggling to "be human" is a bit strained – really, how different to a human is a vampire who can walk around in sunlight, a man who only turns into a werewolf every Full Moon, and the ghost of a recently-deceased person? Not very, if you ask me.

But these are minor quibbles, as writer Toby Whithouse generally did a great job of setting up his characters, the world they live in, and even sowed the seeds of an interesting (if not very original) class war -- with vampires plotting world domination. If a full series is commissioned (and, if Phoo Action can get one, how can it not?), Being Human has potential to be big in scope, yet intimately character-driven by its snug house share basis.

Monstrously fun and entertaining.


18 February 2008
BBC Three, 9.00 pm