If, like me, you find yourself in a state of bereavement about the loss of Stath Lets Flats, the news that its creator and star, Jamie Demetriou, had turned his attention to an hour-long Netflix sketch comedy special – entitled A Whole Lifetime with Jamie Demetriou – might have prompted some complicated feelings.
On one hand, hooray. Demetriou has spent the last few years developing one of the most unique voices in British comedy. His characters – particularly Stath – show a flair for awkward, marble-mouthed slapstick, while hinting at a deep sense of desperation. Any comedy special he makes is likely to plough the same territory, which has to be a good thing. After all, some Jamie Demetriou is better than none.
On the other hand, there was probably a fair amount of trepidation. There is something about the form (a ragtag bunch of sketches loosely assembled around the concept of life) that hints at a lack of focus, a sense that Demetriou isn’t entirely sure what he wanted to achieve. It’s hard not to think of The Meaning of Life, the last-gasp film where Monty Python tried to grasp at something profound, but eventually just flung a bunch of mismatched skits together.
In truth, both presumptions are somewhat justified. There is no real defining thread to the special, no huge truths to be excavated. Although its framing device – a baby in the womb is taught about the various stages of life – would have you believe that Demetriou is grappling with the big issues, that isn’t the case at all. There’s a sketch about Love Island. There’s a sketch about royal weddings. There is one sketch where Demetriou just walks through the same door over and over again for several minutes. As a concept, the whole thing barely hangs together at all.
Thankfully, that doesn’t matter a jot. Structure aside, A Whole Lifetime is very funny. Punishingly funny, in fact. I laughed harder, and more often, during these 52 minutes than I have at anything for as long as I can remember. The sketch in which Demetriou repeatedly walks through a door, as slight as it sounds, is now definitively the sketch about someone repeatedly walking through a door. It is both beautifully observed and physically astonishing, a masterpiece of clattering limbs and hidden hurt. To watch Demetriou walking through a door again and again is to feel bad for all the other comedians who will ever attempt to make a sketch about someone repeatedly walking through a door, for they will never come close.
In truth, a lot of the characters here share Stath’s core DNA. There’s a teenager too bored and scared to have sex, who is extremely Stathy. A middle-aged man awkwardly trying to profess his love for his disinterested wife, in song, could have appeared in Stath. My favourite sketch of the special involves a best man who is wildly out of his depth, trying to mimic the dumb masculine cruelty of a stag night to his obvious mental detriment. It is tremendous, and plays like a great lost Stath Lets Flats episode.
Like a lot of Demetriou’s work, the funniest moments are less about what is actually happening, and more about the overstuffed background details. A royal correspondent lunging at children’s ice-creams like a rabid terrier. A gameshow host fixated on abbreviating the word “barrel” as much as possible. The phrase “pesto pasta”. There is so much going on here, the cumulative effect is quite dizzying. It feels like a fully realised world. If Demetriou were to do a full series of this, it would undoubtedly be magnificent.
But that’s the question. What is Demetriou going to do after this? The man is a major talent, with a necessary voice, and at this point he can pretty much write his own future. If A Whole Life feels like a stepping stone to something bigger, then we’ll all be very lucky to see what that is.
