Sharon Horgan Makes Middle Age Look Like Beautifully Managed Chaos
Mark thee new-series calendar, because Sharon Horgan is back with the kind of woman-on-the-edge comedy that she does almost offensively well.
“She’s got it all. Mostly…” is the deliciously shaky promise behind HBO’s new comedy Youth, premiering Sunday, September 20 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max. The eight-episode season launches with its first two episodes before settling into a weekly Sunday rollout.
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Alex Has A Career, A Family And Approximately Zero Spare Sanity
Horgan plays Alex, a 50-year-old divorcee looking for sex, love and some evidence that life has not quietly moved on without her. Meanwhile, she is caring for her ailing parents and still parenting a son who, as HBO rather perfectly puts it, “should be grown up.”
In other words: romance is only one item on a list already crowded with family obligations, aging, work, adult children and the dawning suspicion that everyone expects the woman in the middle to keep the whole operation running.
The Trailer Knows Exactly How Ridiculous Dating At 50 Can Feel
The first trailer wastes no time establishing Alex’s current emergency. She has been without a man in her bed for years and has started doing the sort of deeply questionable life math that only sounds rational when panic is involved.
That is where Youth looks especially promising. Horgan is not treating middle age like a graceful montage of expensive knitwear and meaningful walks along the coast. It is awkward dates, sexual insecurity, family drama, work problems, parents who need you, children who still need you and the basic indignity of realizing nobody issued instructions for any of it.
Rupert Friend Joins The Mess, Which Can Only Help
The cast gives Horgan plenty of people to bounce off. Rupert Friend plays Patrick, with Sharlene Whyte as Sam, Aran Murphy as Ruari and Robbie Gee as Frank.
Vanity Fair’s first look adds another useful piece to Alex’s particular mess: she works as a London literary agent, giving the series another arena in which ambition, compromise and age can collide. Horgan has said the show grew out of wanting to portray female aging with something closer to the truth — not the oddly polished version television has traditionally preferred.
That mission makes perfect sense coming from the woman behind Catastrophe and Bad Sisters. Horgan’s characters rarely have their lives together, but they are almost always intelligent enough to know exactly how badly things are going. That gap is where the comedy lives.
Youth Is Another Sharon Horgan-Merman Production
Youth is produced by Merman, the company behind Bad Sisters, Amandaland and Vladimir. Horgan stars, writes and executive produces alongside Faye Dorn, Jim Kleverweis and Dawn Shadforth, who also directs.
The series is eight episodes, which feels about right. Enough time for Alex to make several terrible decisions, briefly convince herself they were excellent decisions and then discover there are still six other problems waiting in the kitchen.
Watch Sharon Horgan in the Official Youth Trailer
HBO Max’s roughly 1-minute, 50-second trailer introduces Alex’s dating life, family responsibilities and very Sharon Horgan-style midlife panic ahead of the September 20 premiere.
Source: HBO; HBO Max; Vanity Fair.
