The Flatshare on Paramount+ review: a light and easy watch

Flatmates -  who’d have them?

If you’re young and in a job that pays peanuts, sharing is pretty much the only way you’re getting a foot in to London’s diabolical rental market. It’s cut-throat, it’s expensive, it’ll obliterate any standards you have (especially related to hygiene). It’s also a rite of passage. And just like bad dates, everyone has at least one bad flatmate story. Everyone.

My first share was with three boys whose idea of cleaning was leaving spilled milk to evaporate off the floor. Then there was the guy who switched voices depending on if he was talking to me or my other male housemate; I got falsetto, he got laddish bants. The perve who wouldn’t lock the bathroom door or switch on the lights, so we would walk in on him - sort of reverse flashing. The girl who slept beside bulging bin bags and complained about rodents. The health nut who let mounds of greens go mouldy leaving rancid cucumber juice in the crisper. The tight-arse who invoiced for using his toilet roll  - per ply.

Yet with all these people, delivered to my doorstep on a conveyor belt powered by Spareroom and Gumtree, I only had to share the flat, never my room. I paid a little extra for the luxury of personal space. But not everyone can.

In new streaming site Paramount Plus’s original series The Flatshare, Leon (Anthony Welsh) and Tiffany (Jessica Brown Findlay) not only share a flat, but the same bed too.

It’s not as sordid as it sounds; they’re never under the covers at the same time. Leon works night shift at a hospice and is hard up for cash so decides to sublet the flat for the hours it’s uninhabited. Freshly dumped Tiffany, who earns a crust writing clickbait features, is the willing tenant. Of course, the landlord is none the wiser. Besides it’s for a good cause, Leon needs to fund his brother’s appeal, who is in jail, and Tiffany wants her own space to obsess about her ex.

To keep things running smoothly, there’s The Contract, which, aside from their agreed their hours, includes a stipulation that requires switching back each other’s bedding after every sleep. Fun! Ambitious too; most people only change their sheets every two weeks. I guess there’s a fine line between sharing a bed and snoozing on a stranger’s freshly shedded skin cells. Still, the trade-off of half-price living is worth the faff of daily duvet wrestling. Compromise is key when you’re on minimum wage.

Can you count sticky notes as product placement? They’re the silent star here, the only medium through which the two communicate, despite being perfectly able to text everyone else they know. Soon the kitchen cupboards are papered with Post-Its; curt and pass-aggy at first, then mellowing with bants and swapped passwords for streaming services currently more popular than Paramount Plus. As their lives begin to overlap and friends, bosses and suspicious girlfriends get involved, they soon learn more about each other than what sort of milk they prefer.

Welsh and Findlay are fun to watch (Findlay is an entertaining drunk), and anyone who has shared will find themselves rolling their eyes knowingly at scenes; questionable artwork appearing on the walls, stray pubes in the bath, tedious negotiations over bog roll.

But the big question is, is The Flatshare worth signing up to Paramount Plus for? The streaming site launched in June and one of its biggest draws is that it exclusively streams its new releases 45 days after they hit the big screen. Split the £6.99 monthly cost with friends, family - flatmates? - and this light and easy watch is a nice bonus if you’re primarily signing up for the blockbusters. Worth a look, if only to remind you that living on your own terms is the ultimate prize.

The Flatshare is available to stream on Paramount+ from December 1