Lena Dunham and Girls

Reviewed HBO’s Girls starring Lena Dunham (above) on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row. Listen here from 23h20 and see a rubbish picture here. Girls is most definitely not rubbish. In fact it is brilliant, extraordinary even. Very difficult to pack a description of the first three episodes into three minutes of radio. I didn’t even get to mention how much crazy, weird, dysfunctional sex there is. Or how edgy the humour is: date rape, abortion, STDs…

Masses will be written and said about how this is a new dawn for “wimmin’s comedy”. It sort of is. With Judd Apatow as exec producer, of course – how else would this have got made? But the best thing is, it sort of isn’t. It’s just a great, original sitcom which just happens to have been written, created and directed by a new talent who just happens to be female.

I got annoyed they even called it “Girls” because it really isn’t about the “Girls” at all. It’s about what it’s like to be young and goofy and hopeful and despairing and trying to be good at sex but failing miserably and not having any money and wondering if you will ever do anything or become anything or be anyone and then going out and getting drunk with very unsuitable people. That is not just a “girl” experience. That is life. They also take opium! Is that a New York thing?

Picture by David Shankbone at Tribeca Film Festival.