🔗 Share this article

In a peaceful area of the Irish capital, an individual is standing on the pavement, wearing a tank top and expressing his feelings. “It seems like myself getting quieter. Less noticeable,” remarks Leonard, staring up at the night sky. “One thing’s led to another and at this point I feel like if I don’t do something, I’ll just carry on in this quiet, unremarkable life.” His friend Paul, his only companion, ponders these words. “That's perfectly fine,” he responds, his bathrobe swaying gently. “Better than striving for recognition and causing harm instead.”

For viewers exhausted by the noise and rat-tat-tat of modern television terrain, the show steps in similar to a warm cover with a hot drink of blackcurrant juice.

Like its gentle leads, Leonard and Hungry Paul – a six-episode program created by Richie Conroy and Mark Hodkinson, based on the author’s subtle book – looks disapprovingly toward today's world; looking disapprovingly over its spectacles on everything that involves loud sounds, sudden movements or – perish the thought – too much drive. The program rather, a tribute to quiet people; a gentle tribute to people happy to wander below the parapet. However. He (a further distinctly original turn by the actor) feels restless. He senses an increasing “urge to throw open the doors and windows in my existence … just a bit.” The loss of his beloved mother has yanked the floor from under his slippers and the 32-year-old, an anonymous author, now finds himself doubting the decisions which led him to where he is (alone; sporting facial hair; working on several educational volumes for an employer who concludes correspondence with the phrase “ciao for now”).

Therefore Leonard starts an exploration to find happiness, accompanied by the somewhat braver friend Paul (Laurie Kynaston) serving as his confidante, life coach and ally during their regular game night that serves both as discussion (“Is the water heated from kids relieving themselves, or is it that kids pee because it’s warm?”) and sanctuary.

(How did Paul get his nickname? No idea. The source of this name appears lost in mystery. Maybe he on one occasion consumed some food unusually quickly, or reacted to a tense moment by hastily opening four scotch eggs by biting into them).

Into Leonard’s gentle world comes a new colleague (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell), a recent energetic colleague who happily suggests to get rid of the awful manager (the actor) in a workplace safety exercise. The rushing noise audible is Leonard’s gentle world experiencing a revolution.

In another part during the opening installment of the comedy driven less by plot and centered around what a modern audience might call “vibes”, we are introduced to the older generation (the consistently great the performer), a battered sofa of a man who privately views, saves and reviews television game programs to impress his loving spouse with his general knowledge.

Leading viewers through all this gentle kindness is a narrator that sounds very much like – and, indeed, very much is – Julia Roberts. Yes, the star. If you are thinking, “certainly the use of a big-name celebrity contradicts the series’ unshowy MO and starts off as just a diversion?” that's accurate. Still, Roberts does a good job, and lines like “Leonard's challenge is his absence of an expression of discovery” help ensure that first reservations yield if not quite to appreciation, then at minimum tolerance.

But that’s enough grumbling currently. The series' spirit is in the right place: which is “sitting on a park bench next to the Detectorists, showing its preferred bird.” This is a show that moves gently in its sleeveless jumper, at times staring toward the sky, at other times looking toward the ground, serenely certain that there is nothing in life as heartening as passing time alongside good friends.

Throw open the portals within your world, slightly, and welcome it inside.