Why I’ll miss Cat­a­stro­phe, the anti-sit­com that shone a light on sex, sobri­ety and parenthood

The final episode of Cat­a­stro­phe brings Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan’s sit­com to a close after four acclaimed sea­sons of par­ent­ing woes, sobri­ety bat­tles and bru­tal­ly fun­ny one-lin­ers. Often heart­break­ing, always hilar­i­ous, the series ini­tial­ly told the sto­ry of a teacher who falls preg­nant after a one-night stand with an Amer­i­can ad exec, but quick­ly tran­scend­ed that set-up to become a show about the wider, numb­ing nor­mal­i­ty of adult life: school runs, GP appoint­ments, life insur­ance, wardrobe organ­i­sa­tion (“you let me put my penis in your mouth but you won’t let me put my T‑shirts in your draw­er?”) and every­thing in between.

Its name may sug­gest dra­mat­ic, dis­as­trous events at every turn, but for the most part not a great deal hap­pens in the show (the odd drink dri­ving con­vic­tion and acci­den­tal sex­u­al harass­ment inci­dent aside). Instead, plot lines like Sharon’s post­par­tum obses­sion with anoth­er moth­er from her baby group and Rob’s tee­ter­ing rela­tion­ship with alco­hol play out in excru­ci­at­ing­ly relat­able detail, expos­ing qui­et truths about fam­i­ly, fideli­ty, death, sex, sub­stance abuse, work and wank­ing. These are sub­ject mat­ters sel­dom seen in sit­coms. In Sein­feld, Jer­ry nev­er nursed his father as he sank slow­ly into demen­tia. In Friends, no one ever ago­nised over mort­gage payments.

Cat­a­stro­phe is real in this way – often painful­ly so, refus­ing to flinch from the bru­tal­ly bor­ing minu­ti­ae of mod­ern liv­ing that bogs us all down. Rather than offer an escape from those trou­bles, it holds them up to a loud­speak­er and teach­es us, via Rob and Sharon’s sar­don­ic, affec­tion­ate bed­time chats, that there’s no bull­shit that’s not made man­age­able by the con­nec­tions in our lives: part­ners, fam­i­ly, friends, your recov­er­ing coke­head pal who occa­sion­al­ly attempts to coerce you into get­ting a rec­tal mas­sage with him.

Chances are you bare­ly con­sid­ered this while watch­ing the show, such is its pin­ball-paced dia­logue, pum­melling the view­er with one sweary, mem­o­rable back-and-forth after anoth­er (“If I thrust too deeply, will my penis latch onto the IUD coil thingy and pull it out?” asks Rob after Sharon has the con­tra­cep­tive device fit­ted. ​“No, it’s fine. They put it more than two and a half inch­es inside me”). There are enough gen­uine­ly laugh-out-loud moments like this to make a case for Cat­a­stro­phe being the best British com­e­dy of the last decade: sea­son two’s drunk­en night in a Parisian restau­rant (“Order me the Frenchi­est thing on the menu.” ​“Okay. So, like a cig­a­rette stabbed through a baguette?”); Rob blam­ing a traf­fic acci­dent on his wife ​“recent­ly mas­tur­bat­ing a young stu­dent” in court.

Pro­pelling Cat­a­stro­phe has always been the chem­istry between its co-stars. Hav­ing met on Twit­ter, Delaney and Hor­gan became close friends pri­or to writ­ing the show, and their warmth shines through through­out, adding an addi­tion­al poignan­cy is the series’ habit of bor­row­ing from real life. Rob’s char­ac­ter is a recov­er­ing alco­holic because Delaney is in real life – in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy he details how, in 2002, he blacked out while dri­ving and drove his car into a build­ing, break­ing his left wrist and right arm, scratch­ing his knees to the bone.

Sea­son four feels like the right time for the show to end. Though the dia­logue between Sharon and Rob remains sharp enough to sus­tain the show in bed­room scenes alone for anoth­er 800 sea­sons (yes, I did almost choke on a bit of broc­coli laugh­ing at Rob ask­ing women in a char­i­ty shop how they ​“got into the whole cere­bral pal­sy char­i­ty scene” over din­ner), Catastrophe’s nar­ra­tive drift feels more pro­nounced this sea­son. Its stars deserve time away from the bur­den of writ­ing and star­ring in the show to find big­ger, bet­ter stages for their tal­ents. Last year Delaney and Hor­gan had small roles in Dead­pool 2 and black com­e­dy Game Night respec­tive­ly, sug­gest­ing Hol­ly­wood may beckon.

They leave behind a riotous­ly fun­ny, unsen­ti­men­tal anti-sit­com which took on the crush­ing tedi­um of being a respon­si­ble adult and blazed a new path for British TV come­dies to fol­low. For a show called Cat­a­stro­phe, I’d call that a success.