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WHAT WOULD YOU do if your best friend started going out with your adult daughter? Would you wish the best for them… or wish for revenge?
That’s the premise of the new series Alice & Steve, which comes from writer-creator Sophie Goodhart (Sex Education), production company Clerkenwell Films (Baby Reindeer), and director Tom Kingsley (Stath Lets Flats).
It has two fantastic actors at the helm: Nicola Walker plays Alice and Jemaine Clement plays Steve. Here’s everything you need to know about the Disney+ series, which is out on Monday.
First off – where have I seen these actors before?
Ah yes – well, Nicola Walker is a fantastic British actor who has starred in series like drama The Split and cold case drama Unforgotten, while Jemaine Clement is a New Zealander who starred in the vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows and the brilliant musical comedy series Flight of The Conchords.
The series also stars Joel Fry (Cruella) as Alice’s husband Daniel, and Yali Topol Margalith (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder), as Alice’s daughter Izzy.
What’s it all about?
Alice and Steve have been best friends for decades. But Alice is devastated when Steve starts dating her 26-year-old daughter Izzy. She’s afraid that the relationship means she’s not only going to lose Steve, but she’ll lose her daughter too.
So what does she do? She tries everything she can to end the relationship. But because Steve knows her for so long, he’s more than ready for the attack.
Their friendship goes from perfect to a feud. Yikes. (There are definitely shades of the Netflix comedy-drama series Beef here.)
In addition, we see the series explore Alice’s own marriage with Daniel (Joel Fry) and their son Dom (Tyrese Eaton-Dyce)’s romance with Rome (Eilidh Fisher). So there’s a lot to examine here in terms of relationships, marriage, and love.
What have its stars been saying about it?
Nicola Walker gave an interview to Digital Spy, where she said of the situation between Alice and Izzy:
I felt it was all about her daughter and feeling utterly betrayed by her best friend, so it’s a double whammy.
I would hope that at some point, someone would have pulled me into a room and you know, tied me down and said, ‘you have to step out because they’re 26, and it’s not up to you, irrespective of how you feel.’ That’s really hard as a parent, to keep your mouth shut.
She also said that she related to the scenes where Alice is out of control, and “you don’t often see women out of control to that level”, which made it fun to play as an actor.
Speaking to Variety, Clement was asked if he was concerned about playing an older man dating a younger woman:
I was worried that Yali Topol Margalith, who plays Izzy, would be creeped out. I was very concerned about that. But am I concerned that my character will come across as creepy to the audience? No, because it’s interesting.
Walker told Variety that the characters “end up really, really hurting each other, which seems very much like real life to me”.
“You know, I often don’t believe the way mothers, husband, wives or friends are portrayed on TV. But I read this and went: ‘I understand these people’.”
Writer-creator Sophie Goodhart said she wanted to write about the topic because people can be judgemental about age-gap relationships:
“Is it always unpleasant? Are there any exceptions to the rule? Currently, we’re OK with older women going out with younger men. My husband is much younger, and I get loads of high fives. But if I were a man, people would say: ‘What is she doing’?!”
She also said that this is the kind of series where the audience will find their sympathies towards each character changing from episode to episode – which sounds intriguing.
“My dream would be for people to come away from the show being less judgmental. That would be nice,” said Goodhard.
Anything else we need to know?
Alice & Steve recently had its world premiere at Canneseries in Cannes, where it won an award for best series.
When can we watch Alice & Steve?
The six-part series begins on Monday on Disney+.
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