Hilarious, fearlessly honest romantic comedy about the dating world.
The comedy is a major selling point of the show – it’s cutting and delivered with on-point timing and very close to home. It's made all the better by the fact by the first five minutes you really, really want the two main characters to get together. This is partly the writing but partly because the boy and girl in this instance are excellent (and have great chemistry). Rufus Love and Annie Davison are charming and vulnerable and electric in their respective roles. They’re more than able to pull the weight of a difficult script.
Eliana Ostro (who wrote and directed it) also deals brilliantly with the reflections of her characters, giving them heart and soul while refusing to sacrifice the pace. She paints their fears and their insecurities with intelligence and sensitivity.
Was the ending a little unsatisfactory? I think it’s growing on me. Is Anything With A Pulse (not unlike its one song Mr Brightside) most relatable for a certain type of twenty something white boys and white girls? Probably. But from what I hear there’s something in it for everyone. Did it get all the loneliness and joy and anticipation of being twenty something and white (and drunk) spot on all the same? Yes.
This is partly why, identifying as twenty something and white, it gets the fifth of my available stars. I like it because it sets out to hit some members of the audience where it hurts. Not only does showing us our lives make the comedy more enjoyable, but shows who we are, who we could be and how we could feel and offers some idea why. It’s also a great time along the way.
Anything With A Pulse is in a similar space to some other works (most obvious being Fleabag, which is a selling point in itself) but it more than stands up to the competition as well as telling new stories. I’ve no idea if or when the shine will wear off. It may get old as more of its kind are spawned. For me it touched a nerve. It’s for the world right now, where we are used to mocking ourselves and our heroes and heroines are all painfully self aware, but still capable of a lot of feeling. Go see it.
