Ten Percent, review: the British Call My Agent has star power – but where’s the bite?

Call My Agent is the French drama it became cool to namedrop during lockdown. It is a smart comedy-drama based in the offices of a Parisian talent agency, featuring cameos from actors happy to send themselves up. In one of the best episodes, sexpot Monica Bellucci resolved to live a civilian life and date a maths teacher - or a bookseller, because she’d seen that work for Julia Roberts in Notting Hill. In another, Jean Dujardin had become so immersed in his role as an Army deserter who hid in a forest that he started living rough in his back garden after filming finished.

The heart of the show, though, is with the agents themselves, a motley bunch trying to guide their clients’ careers while bouncing from one potential disaster to another. The format is a winning one, and Britain is the latest country to deliver a remake. Ten Percent (a direct translation of the original French title) moves the offices to Soho, and the list of celebrities playing themselves includes some big names: Helena Bonham Carter, David Oyelowo and Dominic West, for instance.

Of course, you want to know if it’s as good as the original. My immediate reaction was: no, not by a long chalk. For a start, despite being written by John Morton of W1A fame, it really isn’t very funny. If you come expecting W1A’s snappy dialogue and ludicrous characters, you’ll mostly be disappointed. The only obvious resemblance to Morton’s previous work comes in the shape of an assistant (Rebecca Humphries) whose vocabulary consists almost entirely of “Yes”, and two Americans who announce that they’d like to change the title of Eight Days, a war reporter’s gritty memoir of being under siege by Russian-backed military forces: “Our top selects are currently Five Days, Three Days or Pink Mist.”

It also wastes the talent on offer. If you’re going to hire famous actors game enough to appear in this show, why not have them poke fun at their own careers? Ricky Gervais set the bar extremely high for that in Extras, but here everyone is unbelievably, painfully nice.

Bonham Carter and Olivia Williams find themselves up for the same role. Do they bitch about each other? No, they’re the best of friends. Kelly Macdonald is a sweetheart. Phoebe Dynevor is pleasant and polite. Where’s the bite? There are only brief moments in the series when the celebrity cameos feel worthwhile, as when an insecure and irritable West has a visit from his agent. “Thought I’d just pop in and say hello to my favourite client,” she beams. West shoots back: “Why, what happened - did Jude Law die?”

David Harewood is also on good form in an episode inspired by Dujardin’s: he has just starred in a film called The Knowledge, and rejects an offer to be the new Bond in favour of driving a black cab and hanging out in a greasy spoon.

But as I binged my way through the series, a thought occurred to me. Was Call My Agent actually that great? Or were we just seduced by the chic Frenchness of it all? Morton has chosen to lean into the soapy storylines of the original, following the lives of the agents - here played by Jack Davenport, Lydia Leonard, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Maggie Steed. The show it most reminded me of was The Split, the BBC drama about a team of lawyers bonding over their triumphs and disasters. And, eventually, Ten Percent started to grow on me.

Yes, Davenport is essentially playing a middle-aged version of Miles from This Life. Leonard revives memories of Joy in Drop the Dead Donkey, and Puwanarajah is too much of a klutz. But the story draws us into their lives, and the standout performer is Steed as Stella Hart, grand dame of the agency (with a little dog called Mathias, an insider reference to Call My Agent) and wonderfully old-school.

Morton has also introduced a new character, Simon Gould, played by Tim McInnerny as an out-of-work luvvie forever on the verge of tears. He could easily have been a figure of fun, but Morton has chosen to make him entirely sympathetic, a kind and generous human being whose confidence has been shot to pieces after years as an alcoholic. There is not a trace of cynicism in the portrayal.

What we end up with is an underdog story, as the Brits fight to defend their agency from a takeover by appalling Americans. By the end, you may even be rooting for them.

Ten Percent will be on Amazon Prime Video now