Ben Miller’s Murray is introduced as the world’s most agreeable doormat: a photocopier salesman whose wife Caroline Catz’s Bex blows out the candles on her 40th birthday cake and walks straight out of the marriage. The six episodes that follow chart Murray’s blundering reconstruction of the relationship through surveillance, sabotage and spectacular self-harm, all while his pub-owning father-in-law Peter Wight looms as a permanent reminder that he was never good enough.
Written by Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni, the series keeps the action in genteel suburbia, letting every humiliation unfold in coffee chains, garden centres and the open-plan office where co-worker Susannah Fielding’s Emma waits impatiently for Murray to notice her. The humour comes from Murray’s refusal to accept defeat; each scheme, from fake dating profiles to accidental house fires, tightens the noose he believes he is loosening.
BBC One burnt the show off in a single spring month, premiering 18 April 2016 and finishing 23 May. No second series was commissioned, leaving Murray stranded mid-grovel and the audience with the unmistakable sense that sometimes the door slams for good.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 6 Episodes / 2016
Created by: Mark Bussell, Justin Sbresni
Writer(s): Mark BussellJustin Sbresni
Producer(s): Mark BussellJustin SbresniBusby Productions
Main Cast
Ben Miller as Murray
Caroline Catz as Bex
Kenneth Collard as Grant
Kate Miles as Tamzin
Peter Wight as Don (Bex's father)
Carla Harrison-Hodge as Waitress
