I\u2019ve been at more than one party where a stranger has told me they are still living with their ex, even sharing a bed. I don\u2019t judge. I\u2019ve experienced this myself. I remember a sad, uncanny time at the end of a relationship. Untangling our lives but not our bodies, supporting the other through their worst pain while trying to ignore the fact that the worst pain is you. But sometimes these strangers tell me they have been living this way for months, perhaps years, and my empathy flips to horror. \u201cWhat the hell is going on in your house?\u201d I think.<\/p>\n
I found answers in Break Clause (Thursday, 10pm), a new Channel 4 dramedy. It\u2019s the story of sweethearts Ben (Samuel Bottomley<\/a>) and Lil (Lara Ricote<\/a>), Leeds University graduates who decide to transplant their lives to London. On the eve of moving, there\u2019s an incident that leads to a terrible confession in the hallway of their new flat. Ben and Lil break up \u2013 in the presence of their estate agent, who tells them the paperwork is irrevocable. They will have to live together for six months until the contract break clause. That\u2019s awkward! But can tenancy rights correct a relationship wrong?<\/p>\n Break Clause mines territory other shows ignore: the biting economic pressure of being young in a housing crisis. There\u2019s no suspension of disbelief here, no twentysomethings living in loft apartments the size of a Virgin Atlantic business lounge. The couple live in south London, in an ex-council flat with grotty underpasses. Ben has a meet-cringe with a neighbour who spots him bin-diving for food. He\u2019s copying videos posted by foraging influencers. \u201cI think they mean the bins outside M&S, not the big ones under flats,\u201d she replies.<\/p>\n All together now \u2026 Break Clause. Photograph: Channel 4<\/p>\n Lil is an architect, Ben is a writer. It\u2019s hard for any household to survive income inequality, by which I mean only one of them has one. Lil gets a job, at a firm, on a promotion track, while Ben volunteers to be injected with viruses for \u00a3800. Honestly, I\u2019m not sure he is a good writer. Partly because he thought that a medical trial was a job interview, partly because he attempts to steal a YA novel idea from a teenager he tutors. Also, he\u2019s too nice.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s dating, which takes place under each other\u2019s noses. Ben and Lil are trying to be friends. What choice do they have, forced cheek by jowl? They could illegally sublet, I suppose, but it probably wouldn\u2019t give them both the means to live elsewhere. Perhaps their relationship isn\u2019t over, the series teases. But should it be?<\/p>\n If a 22-year-old were to confess to me they weren\u2019t sure their current partner was \u201cthe one\u201d, I would tell them baldly that obviously they weren\u2019t, and that their relationship with relationships had barely begun. There\u2019ll be more of this pain, I\u2019d say, harder lessons, plus a healthy whack of bad timing and cosmic injustice. It\u2019s probably a good thing I don\u2019t have young people who look up to me.<\/p>\n Break Clause\u2019s will-they-won\u2019t-they can feel thin, and John Thomson is underused as Ben\u2019s father. But it\u2019s funny, there\u2019s verve to the dialogue and direction, plus a winning performance from Mexican-American comedian Ricote, an effervescent mix of Megan Stalter and Jenny Slate. She lands the best gags \u2013 such as when Lil, seized by the romance of a moment, will jump into a game of double dutch with teenagers, or lean her head on a stranger\u2019s shoulder as they sit on a bench by the Thames. Repulsed and confused, they all give her a dirty look. \u201cBad call on my part,\u201d Lil acknowledges.<\/p>\n Mostly, it\u2019s refreshing to watch a show that isn\u2019t wholly convinced love conquers all. In this economy? I\u2019m convinced that twentysomething couples who live together now do so primarily to split rent. Certainly, no one in London is in love. They can\u2019t access the upper tiers of the self-actualisation pyramid required, because they\u2019re too stressed about not having a pension. Most comedies exist in a fantasy realm, where all housing is affordable. But\u00a0escapism isn\u2019t everything. Maybe rental regulation is the romance this generation needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve been at more than one party where a stranger has told me they are still living with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}