Feel Good offers a fresh, relat­able depic­tion of addic­tive love

Stand-up comics piv­ot­ing to tele­vi­sion is a tra­di­tion that dates back to Bob Newhart and Robin Williams in the 1970s. It isn’t all talk­ing in front of a pay­ing audi­ence – some­times they play aliens from out­er space – but the pro­fes­sion itself has been utilised as part of the nar­ra­tive on sev­er­al shows includ­ing Sein­feld and the short-lived Mulaney.

On Sein­feld, each episode was book­end­ed with a set from Jer­ry, feed­ing into the idea of a stand-up per­sona. Blur­ring the lines even fur­ther is Chan­nel 4 and Netflix’s lat­est co-pro­duc­tion, Feel Good. Star­ring and co-cre­at­ed by Mae Mar­tin, a per­son­al tale of addic­tion and intox­i­cat­ing love takes cen­tre stage.

Hail­ing from Cana­da, the Lon­don-based come­di­an has pre­vi­ous­ly dis­cussed her addic­tive per­son­al­i­ty in the Net­flix spe­cial ​‘Dope’. ​“When you’re doing some­thing com­pul­sive­ly despite it hav­ing neg­a­tive con­se­quences in your day to day life,” is how Mar­tin describes the self-sooth­ing behav­iours of addic­tion whether Bette Midler, com­e­dy, drugs or love – all of which have been Martin’s choice of ​“poi­son” in the past. Feel Good takes the con­cept of sub­sti­tut­ing one unhealthy obses­sion for anoth­er and frames it with­in a roman­tic com­e­dy set-up, result­ing in a fresh take on a well-worn genre.

Embark­ing on a new rela­tion­ship while grap­pling with the ups and downs of recov­ery comes with its own set of chal­lenges. A meet-cute at the Gag Bin com­e­dy club pro­vides the light­ning bolt moment intro­duc­ing Mae to George (Char­lotte Ritchie), which sees the pair fall into cou­ple­dom at an accel­er­at­ed pace. Mat­ters are com­pli­cat­ed fur­ther as the prag­mat­ic George has nev­er been in a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship with a woman and she doesn’t know how to breach this sub­ject out­side of the love bubble.

Pow­er dynam­ics shift through­out, deliv­er­ing vul­ner­a­ble moments from both Mar­tin and Ritchie. Heady feel­ings are coun­ter­bal­anced with para­noia and ram­pant inse­cu­ri­ty that threat­ens this new union. Through­out the six episodes, direc­tor Ally Pankiw deploys bird’s‑eye view shots of the bed and close-ups that empha­sis­es the inti­ma­cy of the per­for­mances, invit­ing the audi­ence to wit­ness the roller coast­er of emo­tions from the front row.

Temp­ta­tion is nev­er too far away, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a pro­fes­sion in which it isn’t unusu­al to see some­one doing coke back­stage. A Nar­cotics Anony­mous group pro­vides an out­let for Mae, but she uses the group ses­sions to dis­cuss her rela­tion­ship issues as much as sub­stance abuse – her intense roman­ti­cism is an exten­sion of her addic­tive behav­iour. The lat­ter is explored in detail dur­ing a sojourn to Blackpool.

This stand­out episode fea­tures a ter­rif­ic per­for­mance from Lisa Kudrow as Mae’s moth­er, Lin­da. Old resent­ments rear their ugly head, giv­ing Kudrow and Mar­tin an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dig deep into the com­plex mother/​daughter dynam­ic, while also let­ting their comedic instincts shine through. Feel Good is at its most potent when it under­cuts the intense emo­tion­al­i­ty with a joke.

The addic­tive impuls­es Mar­tin dis­cuss­es in her stand-up are depict­ed in a way that might have you won­der­ing if this cou­ple are doomed from the start, but like any good roman­tic com­e­dy, the case is made as to why they should be togeth­er. Aching­ly sad at times, Feel Good will no doubt draw com­par­isons to oth­er recent female-front­ed come­dies fea­tur­ing a lead char­ac­ter with a messy love life. How­ev­er, the por­tray­al of addic­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty and sex­u­al­i­ty ensures that any­one who makes this obser­va­tion isn’t pay­ing atten­tion to what is unfold­ing on screen.

Feel Good sea­son one airs on Chan­nel 4/​All4 on March 18 and Net­flix on March 19.