Ageing has changed, hasn\u2019t it? There\u2019s a generation of middle-aged and perimenopausal elder millennials and xennials who refuse to do it. We\u2019re young enough to be part of an online world that puts a premium on appearance, too old for such narcissistic self-branding to be achieved without unsustainable effort. Dating apps and social media connect people across generations, so it\u2019s easy to become confused about how old we actually are. Here\u2019s a tip: ask your knees.<\/p>\n
This brings us to Youth (from Monday 21 September, HBO Max), Sharon Horgan<\/a>\u2019s dramedy about being 50. That perky title is a quip about the decade being known as \u201cthe youth of old age\u201d. Horgan is Alex, a divorcee in her sandwich years, caring for teenage son Ruar\u00ed and ageing parents. There\u2019s a lot going on in her life, and some doom. She\u2019s falling forwards in a semi-successful career as a literary agent, getting back into dating under pressure. She needs someone to fall in love with her immediately, as she points out to her best friend. Not for romantic myth-making, but \u201cso there\u2019s a bit of time with the present version of me, before the \u2018old me\u2019 is here\u201d.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve made it sound not funny; it\u2019s very funny. The world of publishing is ripe for satire, and the show wields more skewers than a kebab shop. On the walls of Alex\u2019s office are posters for prestige titles: Life After Death \u2013 A Memoir of Guilt, Babyfingers and Where the Daylight Falls. I\u2019ve seen all of them on the Richard and Judy Book Club. And then there\u2019s Goblin Seed.<\/p>\n Goblin Seed is a ludicrous romantasy in the Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey mould. (I think that title is a pun, too.) It\u2019s written by one of Alex\u2019s former authors, a smug creep who self-published after rejection, and has since enjoyed runaway success with his horny, badly written prose (\u201cThe goblin seed was gold, and soon the sheets were glittering\u201d). Tasked with wooing him back, every interaction has Alex looking as if she wants to throw up in her mouth.<\/p>\n Youth fires shots across the creative arts. Ruar\u00ed\u2019s dad, Lorcan, is an actor. Not quite absent, but so self-involved he\u2019s not so much phoning it in as texting. He\u2019s about to move to Canada to film a lucrative \u201cspaceship show\u201d, and has re-recorded his answer-machine message in its alien language, while feeling above the project. He\u2019s also dating the young landlady he met when he moved out of Alex\u2019s. Oh God, the humanities.<\/p>\n Thankfully, Ruar\u00ed has a number of unsuitable father figures to choose from. There\u2019s Alex\u2019s ex, Patrick, a handsome and \u201cinstitutionally single\u201d 47-year-old who specialises in sending mixed messages. There\u2019s older love interest Michael, played with generous sensitivity by Tim McInnerny<\/a>. He\u2019s stable, kind, attentive. But Alex can\u2019t stop staring at his loose chin, and ducks his kisses like Neo dodges bullets.<\/p>\n Sex scenes in Youth are the antithesis of Hollywood gloss, hilarious and penetratingly insightful. \u201cI don\u2019t know you well enough to be selfish in bed,\u201d Alex confesses to one lover. How has the gap between sex and intimacy widened in her lifetime? It\u2019s easy to kid yourself about this at 25, twice\u00a0as hard at 50.<\/p>\n Horgan\u2019s gift is v\u00e9rit\u00e9. The friend groups and workplaces are diverse in a way that\u2019s London-real, rather than box-ticking from above. Youth is mordantly funny, yet never betrays character. As you\u2019d expect from the creator of Motherland, it\u2019s superb on mum stuff. Alex often mutters the word \u201cdick\u201d to herself when Ruar\u00ed is being particularly teenage, yet their love is clear. He\u2019s played by Aran Murphy,<\/a> son of Cillian, who delivers a beautifully unforced performance. At points I\u00a0felt as if I were watching Boyhood.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the parental subplot, which could carry a series alone. A million miles from saccharine depictions of elderly people, Youth shows the uninspiring, Sisyphean grind of care-giving, which is mostly navigating confused, false-crisis phone calls, sibling resentment and travelling 25 miles to demonstrate the position of the volume button on an iPad. However much we deny our age, life has its own plans. Thank God for Sharon Horgan: chronicler of all our journeys, like a foul-mouthed, funnier 7 Up. This painfully relatable, brilliant show made me feel a bit tired at times. Then again, I\u2019m always tired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ageing has changed, hasn\u2019t it? 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