As my very brief stint some years ago revealed, office work is neither glamorous, nor exciting. Filing categorically does not give rise to amorous trysts with the handsome executive. I didn’t even get to experience that sitcom staple, the boozy office party with bad karaoke and ill-advised photocopying.
Not that you’d know it by noting the fictional firm of Hartmann-Payne, as depicted in Personal Affairs. A colourful BBC Three froth aimed squarely at women under 30, ostensibly my demographic, and fans of a certain Sarah Jessica Parker series, not my demographic, incidentally. I’d be hard-pressed to say, actually, what this company does, but I really didn’t care.
I should hate it. Take the confused, borderline offensive gender politics and the annoying nudge-wink title. The crisp opening sequence uses the sleek illustration style that features prominently in glossy fashion mags and trendy theme music from white soul-funk warbler and all-round 80s throwback Sam Sparro. Then, the vapid, anodyne covers of songs I love dripping all over the soundtrack. The script shows the tiniest glimmer of self-insight in one of the early fantasy sequences, before it vanishes beneath waves of gloss.
There’s the thoroughly predictable central characters tottering on terrifying heels through various misadventures – Nicole (a radiant Maime McCoy, here read Jaime Murray with slightly more range), the ice-queen with abandonment issues out to snare a millionaire. Lucy (Laura Aikman) the no-nonsense blonde Essex girl nursing a dream of beating the Oxbridge set at their own game and Midge (Annabel Scholey, Being Human), the cute, ditzy one who wants to be a megastar.
The male characters comprise a dreamy Texan banker and stargazer (Robert Gant), a sexy doctor (primetime beefcake-for-hire, Jeremy Sheffield) and a slimy, slick-haired upstart (Darren Boyd), all priapic, unappealing, and one-dimensional to a man. No coincidence, surely, in such a sweaty, libidinous hothouse where no one seems to do any work, that the one man unable to rise to the occasion turns out to be a twitching psychotic.
Almost all the names sound like rejects from the adult film industry, and some of the accents, too. But, near half way through the series, my urge to hurl my nice new television set through a window died.
Why? It looks lovely. Everyone’s so improbably, beautifully dressed. There’s prettily accessorised office paraphernalia, flowers and twinkly fairy lights, those much-maligned wooshy, glittering aerial tracking shots of the London skyline so beloved of the BBC’s drama department. I rather enjoyed the muddled visual styles taking in animation and surreal, jewel-bright daydreams cooked up by someone who aspires to Baz Lurhman-esque flights of fancy.
Personal Affairs is derivative, escapist rubbish with the plot twists broadcast well in advance – try playing Spot the Shock Lesbian Couple. You’ll win, I promise. The biggest plot reveal, unsurprisingly, filched from another campy-vampy image obsessed office, though not carried off with anywhere near enough daring or catty humour.
Speaking of plot, if we must, Personal Affairs sets up a mystery for our girls to solve in between all that employer-employee fraternisation, when queen bee Grace Darling (Olivia Grant, Stardust) disappears without trace and a bug-eyed emo-interloper with criminal leanings causes a stir in her absence.
Personal Affairs isn’t sure if it wants to be a black-hearted, arch soap in the vein of Desperate Housewives, a drama or a farce. It’s even a step short of having the action narrated by a deceased character. All the women ache for a boyfriend, love, and babies, while espousing the virtues of a good, healthy, meaningless seeing to. When a character has frantic sex with a stranger against a lift wall at work, and manages an earth-shattering, knee-trembling orgasm into the bargain, in under a minute, I was unsure whether to be impressed or concerned. (Is it no longer enough to tumble onto floor/desk/stationary cupboard?)
Like the sitcom bimbo who’ll trot out that old standby ‘no offence’ before uttering something comically hideous, Personal Affairs trips along merrily to conclusion as above, but not before insulting closeted lesbians, orthodox Jews, transsexuals and ginger-haired men. All in well-meaning, inadvertent fashion, of course.
You’ll be torn between a good shower, a cigarette, or both afterwards but it’s all strangely riveting. Despite a fun comic turn from Mark Benton, actor of choice for bumbling, softhearted idiots, Personal Affairs leaves no more permanent an impression than a sticky, sickly envelope-glue flavour, and a ringing endorsement of the idiom all fur coat and no knickers as a lifestyle choice.
