Threesome – Series 1

Thirty- something couple Alice and Mitch have a drunken threesome with their gay best friend Ritchie and Alice falls pregnant as a result. Assuming the father to be Mitch, Ritchie persuades them to keep the baby promising to help bring up the child as a threesome. It turns out that Mitch is infertile so the baby is Ritchies, however they decide to go ahead as planned anyway..
Series one of Threesome has a bit of a job on its hands. It has to introduce the central concept, it has to sidestep accusations of being a familiar, bawdy comedy series. And it has to entertain. Fortunately, thanks to some terrific writing and a collection of excellent performances, it proves itself to be something of a treat.
The conceit of Threesome is that a seemingly happy couple, Alice and Mitch, decide to have a threesome with their gay best friend, Ritchie. The problem? Alice discovers shes pregnant, and its not entirely clear who the father is. She presses ahead with the pregnancy, and the scene is set for a situation comedy thats very much for grown-ups, but also very funny.
Theres a warmth to the three leads, played by Emun Elliott, Stephen Wright and Amy Huberman, that really helps the show connect. What Threesome sometimes lacks is just a little restraint, trying a little too hard at times to be funny and entertaining. But when the show fully fires, its really very good. Tom MacRaes fine scripts rarely let the audience relax, and hes clearly having a lot of fun with his work. Fortunately, the audience gets to share that, too.
Its a spicy mix of sex, crudeness, bad taste and laughs. In this case, that very much works to Threesomes advantage.