Cheaters, series 2, review: the best thing about this millennial sex comedy is the (short) length
Cheaters (BBC One) is a sort of British sex comedy, although that genre has moved on since the Confessions of a Window Cleaner days. Now it’s all about millennials having sex in gentrified Peckham – then feeling anxious about it afterwards.
The first series, which aired in 2022, was a sweet romcom underneath it all. Josh (Joshua McGuire) and Fola (Susan Wokoma) had a drunken one-night stand in Finland after meeting in the airport when their flight home was cancelled. Josh had a girlfriend, though he’d just found out she cheated on him, and Fola was married. Once home, they discovered to their horror Fola and her husband Zack had just bought the house opposite Josh and his girlfriend Esther. Cue major awkwardness, then a growing feeling that maybe the one-nighter should turn into something more.
Series one ended with Esther walking in on Fola and Josh in bed, while Zack watched through a gap in the door, because that’s his sexual fetish. I don’t know what’s worse: having to witness icky scenes of Jack’s voyeurism – and there are many more in series two, especially when he moves in with a middle-aged couple who like an audience – or witnessing this character being played by Jack Fox. Like all members of the Fox dynasty, he’s as English as Fortnum and Mason, yet here is distractingly cast as an American.
The two leads are good comic actors, but the casting of Josh is also a bit odd, because you have to buy that sleek, confident Fola is attracted to this well-meaning but bumbling beta male (“He’s like a sexy Paddington!” says Fola’s sister). The focus of this series is on if they will become a couple now that their affair is out in the open.
To complicate matters, Esther (Callie Cooke) has returned from travelling in Thailand and moved back in with Josh, complete with an idiotic new boyfriend called Lars who has never heard of the Beatles. Esther is the weakest link here, a character played much more broadly than the other three.
If you enjoyed series one then you’ll enjoy this – although not as much, because it’s drawing out the story beyond its natural life. There are funny moments – writer Oliver Lyttelton is good at the stuff around the edges, as when Josh’s sister hosts a lesbian book club in his flat and he asks: “What’s so LGBTQ+ about Prince Harry’s autobiography anyway?” And I almost forgot to mention the best thing about it, which is that the episodes are only 15 minutes long.