Queen of discomfort Julia Davis reigns again in… | Little White Lies

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Queen of dis­com­fort Julia Davis reigns again in Sally4Ever

11 Dec 2018

Words by Roxanne Sancto

A woman with blonde hair wearing a white tank top and smiling in a room with colourful walls.
A woman with blonde hair wearing a white tank top and smiling in a room with colourful walls.
This pitch-black rela­tion­ship com­e­dy is one of the year’s most excru­ci­at­ing­ly awk­ward – and best – view­ing experiences.

Those famil­iar with the pecu­liar school of Julia Davis’ com­e­dy agree that her shows can feel as excru­ci­at­ing­ly uncom­fort­able as watch­ing a sex scene with your par­ents – even when you’re watch­ing solo. She thrives on mak­ing her audi­ence cringe through dark­ly com­ic scenes so sub­tly dis­gust­ing and weird they force you to hone the skill of avoid­ing eye con­tact with any­one shar­ing the space with you. Her char­ac­ters unrav­el in fits of des­per­ate human mis­ery and ego, like the prover­bial train wreck you sim­ply can­not look away from – but in a strange­ly pos­i­tive sense.

Davis’ lat­est explo­ration of a bro­ken human psy­che, Sally4Ever, is per­haps her great­est to date. Sex­u­al­ly depraved and at times dif­fi­cult to watch – not only through vic­ar­i­ous embar­rass­ment but due to visu­als so per­verse they’re even sur­pris­ing for an HBO asso­ci­at­ed series – the show delves deep into the char­ac­ters’ need to be loved, desired and admired at all costs.

It fol­lows Sal­ly (Cather­ine Shep­herd), who is stuck in a love­less rela­tion­ship with David (Alex Mac­queen). This cou­ple epit­o­mis­es every pos­si­ble turn-off you might asso­ciate with a long-term union – from leisure­ly toe-nail-clip­ping ses­sions on the liv­ing room cof­fee table to the worst pos­si­ble approach­es to fore­play, leav­ing even the view­er feel­ing desert-dry and phys­i­cal­ly repulsed.

When Sal­ly meets the mys­te­ri­ous and free-spir­it­ed Emma (Davis her­self) on an unchar­ac­ter­is­tic night out in a dingy night­club, she is intrigued by her ooz­ing sex­u­al­i­ty and prompt­ly starts an affair with her. Emma opens Sal­ly up to sex­u­al expe­ri­ences she nev­er imag­ined in her wildest fan­tasies, but her meek per­son­al­i­ty stops her from voic­ing her own wants, desires and, most impor­tant­ly of all, bound­aries – and Emma knows all too well how to exploit these weaknesses.

Emma is a mas­ter manip­u­la­tor whose sex­u­al appetite and relent­less insist­ing are at times hor­ri­fy­ing. Before long, she has moved into Sally’s place, dec­o­rat­ed it to her own lik­ing – com­plete with pink, flash­ing fairy lights and a large nude por­trait of her­self squat­ting over a ted­dy-bear – seem­ing­ly obliv­i­ous to Sally’s grow­ing but sub­mis­sive irri­tabil­i­ty. She has no fil­ter and is utter­ly unaware of the dis­com­fort she caus­es in others.

Emma inserts her­self in the most inti­mate areas of Sally’s life with an unbri­dled author­i­ty which at first is mis­tak­en for an obses­sive kind of love. The biggest threat to Emma through­out the series is Nigel, Sally’s real love inter­est (played by Davis’ hus­band, Julian Bar­ratt). Their on-screen dynam­ic is thrilling to watch as they play off of each other’s con­trast­ing inten­si­ties in a way that feels authen­tic no mat­ter how small or flip­pant the scene.

The sin­is­ter har­mo­ny of Davis’ shows relies heav­i­ly on its sec­ondary char­ac­ters, but in the case of Sally4Ever they’re all pro­tag­o­nists in their own rights. Their appear­ances may be fleet­ing, but these char­ac­ters and their micro-sto­ry­lines are so pow­er­ful and absurd, they are every bit as mem­o­rable as Sal­ly and Emma’s relationship.

The first few min­utes of Sally4Eva tricks the view­er into relax­ing into what – at least visu­al­ly – appears to be a rel­a­tive­ly nor­mal show. None of the char­ac­ters look espe­cial­ly out­landish; the back­drops are per­fect­ly mun­dane. As it unfolds, how­ev­er, the show sucks you into a world of dis­turbed, self-obsessed and gen­uine­ly unpleas­ant peo­ple. You have entered the king­dom of pitch-black com­e­dy and, as long as Julia Davis con­tin­ues to reign, you will nev­er feel the light.

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