Last time we encountered Alma Nuttall – the conscientiously “fabulous” protagonist of Alma’s Not Normal – she was about to swap her frequently grim job as an escort for a six-month tour with an inclusive theatre company, having qualified for a place on account of her experiences in the care system. She’d been nailbitingly close to passing up the opportunity altogether: guilt-tripped by her self-pitying heroin addict mother and almost charmed back into submission by her arse of an ex-boyfriend, Alma was on the verge of staying put in her Bolton flat, complete with Julie Walters shrine and felt-tip-rendered plan for Hollywood domination. That didn’t happen, thankfully. Due to a combination of her traumatic upbringing and whimsical nature, there are few characters easier to root for than this sweetly garrulous wannabe.
As the sitcom returns, fingers remain tightly crossed. Alma is an obvious proxy for her creator, the Boltonian comedian Sophie Willan, who also spent time in care due to her mother’s heroin addiction, and has also been an escort. Yet Willan no longer need fantasise about making it. Since Alma’s Not Normal first aired in 2021, she has won Baftas, also appeared in Time and, Ludwig, and proved to be a delightfully daffy addition to the Taskmaster lineup. It’s testament to how vividly Willan has established Alma’s world – and to the likability of the 36-year-old herself – that I was desperately hoping our protagonist might enjoy a similar trajectory.
Sadly for our hero – but fortunately for the stasis that underpins the sitcom form at its finest – she’s had no such luck. Lumped with the role of a tree, Alma failed to attract the attention of a hot-shot agent and makes a bathetic return to Bolton, where her imperious grandmother Joan (Lorraine Ashbourne) is holding her mother’s schizophrenic boyfriend semi-captive in her house and her best friend Leanne (Jayde Adams) is now empress of a happening bar. Blacklisted from escorting and getting nowhere with an agent who operates out the back of a chippy, she convinces Leanne to take her on.
In another sense, however, Alma’s life does mirror Willan’s. The latter dedicated her Bafta to her grandmother Denise, always her biggest cheerleader, who died during the filming of the show’s first series. Now we learn that Joan – a leopard print-ensconced sex machine who can be deliriously self-involved, but who is a haven of stability for Alma – has lung cancer. She’s given up smoking, extolling the virtues of party blowers as a cig-substitute (“you get the same catharsis as a fag, with no harm and a fun little noise!”), but otherwise is reluctant to discuss the details. In any case, she feels “fine” – and proves it by maniacally high-kicking in front of the dishy consultant.
In its first series, Alma’s Not Normal pulled off quite a feat: it made the tale of a neglected child who becomes a perennially disappointed woman into a comedy of unbridled joy and hilarity. That was largely the result of its effervescent dialogue, studded with mildly outrageous, genuinely funny jokes. But it was also due to the show’s female-centric celebration of run-of-the-mill British life: Willan draws warmth and comfort from non-events such as Joan insisting on presenting Alma with the spam sandwich she’s just refused, or her ex-boyfriend’s mum plonked on a sofa drinking tea, eating biscuits and slagging off daytime TV.
Can the show maintain the same life-affirming vibe in light of such a heartbreaking development? Broadly, yes – although series two also radiates rage and devastation; every laugh a hair’s breadth from tears. The rage relates to the plight of Alma’s mother Lin (Siobhan Finneran), who is back on a badly run psychiatric ward having broken her hospital order. Lin – who Happy Valley’s Finneran instils with gruff childishness in a mesmerically odd and totally convincing performance – is twitchy with prominent false teeth and prone to long-winded rants about the authorities. Yet for Alma, the real villain is a Tory-decimated welfare state. As for devastation, that’s reserved for her grandmother’s fate. Ashbourne (who was also exceptional in the recent series of Sherwood) is inordinately hilarious and weirdly aspirational as Joan. This time she’s imbued with more depth as she’s reunited with her siblings (Julie Hesmondhalgh and Steve Pemberton guest star) to highly amusing but emotionally shattering effect.
This is the final series of Alma’s Not Normal – although Willan has said there is a Christmas special in the works. I’m not sure what the latter would achieve, considering this run ends on such a powerfully bittersweet and satisfyingly meta note. As an elegy to her real grandmother, Alma’s Not Normal is eloquent, radiantly beautiful and – in the Nuttall vernacular – totally fabulous. And as a furiously real yet incorrigibly hilarious sitcom, it’s pretty much perfect.
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