Vicious

After reading the hyper-sensitive and depressed reviews of this show, I was expecting to hate it, but I decided to give it a chance for Ian McKellan.

I'm glad I did. It is laugh-out-loud funny.

Unfortunately, it seems we're only getting six episodes this year (until Christmas). I wanted it to continue, because each episode seems to be better than the one before.

I haven't seen the shows that others are comparing it to, so it is fresh for me. Maybe you have to know a few couples like Freddie and Stuart for it to make sense. They are in no way out of date or homophobic.

Violet is also a character for our times. And who doesn't have a Penelope in their life?

Ash fills out the ... uh, yes, cast. His optimism is a great contrast to the rest of the jaded characters.

It's deliciously vicious, this "Vicious" series from the Brits. And no one does "camp" like the Brits. Between Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi, we have "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe" meeting "Will and Grace," with the former coming out better, higher, funnier.

Sharp, very sharp, screenplay and the biting, scathing retorts to these who longtime partners is at once horrifying yet all this ends up in an "ab fab" understatement: they really are more than partners; they are friends. Kudos to them for chancing such roles and kudos to the writers for being so "spot on." (And what's NOT to like about Ash!)

Here's to a continuation of this series.

I thoroughly enjoyed this show.

I saw a few episodes and I fell in love with all the characters. My best friends are gay couples and, in spite of the put downs, they do love each other. Well written, charmingly acted - it is a great show!

I have always loved Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellan. I am a great fan of their work.

They work well together and the Frances De La Tour character is a laugh riot.

The young man that lives upstairs is a particular favourite of my fifteen year old daughter.

I hope this show lasts for a long time!

Sir Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi star in "Vicious," also starring Frances de la Tour.

McKellen and Jacobi play, for want of a better term, two old queens, and de la Tour plays their upstairs neighbor Violet. McKellen's character, Freddie, was an actor with so-so success who talks about his fan mail ("You only had one fan," Stuart (Jacobi) reminds him. "Yes, but he wrote a lot of letters," Freddie says.) In the episode I saw, the two were mourning, if that's the right word, the death of an old friend who apparently had been the lover of Freddie at one time, though he also managed to have two wives and six children. "Wasn't there a wife?" Penelope (Marcia Warren) asks. "Oh, yes," Stuart says, "but that was only for 19 years." Basically, it's the two guys throwing insults at one another and having a bad reaction when someone opens the curtains and lets in the light. The one-liners for the most part are very funny, delivered by two great actors who are obviously enjoying themselves camping it up.

I have to say I found it quite enjoyable, funny, and on a higher level than some of the comedies on TV today.

I give this an 11/10 because it was so much more entertaining to me than most shows I watch. I laughed a lot in every single episode and loved all of them by the end (which seems bizarre at the start, but really it's inevitable by the end).

The show takes stereotypical things and people and plays them very well, turning them into characters that I'd love to see come back for another season. It is original in that its main characters are almost all 70+, and that the main two are gay men, but they're all played as people who happen to be those things, not totally defined by them.

If you don't have the necessary sense of humor, you will be confused and/or offended by the show. But if you understand it, it's incredibly funny, relevant, and you'll see that the people are all very loving with each other (in a crazy way).

It doesn't have a massively dynamic, ever-changing cast of characters with deep plots - it's about two people living their very ordinary lives together. They do it so well that it makes it extraordinary for me.

So, I recommend this and I hope you give it a chance or three.