Anna, a self-sufficient copywriter, and Sam, a Sudanese-British father sleeping on a blow-up bed after his wife’s departure, meet when each believes they are dying: she rings his bell mid-heart-scare, he has just swallowed a handful of pills. From that mortifying first hello the pair circle each other through six half-hour episodes set in a red-brick Manchester block where every corridor echoes with loneliness. The Israeli format is transplanted intact but given new accents by writers Dana Fainaru and Hamish Wright, who keep the humour bone-dry and the sex talk frank enough to make a mid-life audience squirm in recognition.
Katherine Parkinson lets Anna’s armour slip one mortifying grin at a time, while Youssef Kerkour fills Sam’s towering frame with a gentleness that makes his clueless parenting feel forgivable. Around them Mark Heap’s nosy widower Ray and Kelle Bryan’s no-filter Shelley supply punchlines without sliding into sitcom caricature. Director David Sant shoots the city in slate greys and neon takeaway signs, letting the odd canal-side bench supply the only soft focus these bruised characters will allow themselves.
The entire run landed at once on ITVX in June 2023, then quietly slipped onto ITV1 in the new-year dead zone, earning respectable catch-up figures but no recommission, ending with Anna and Sam on a canal boat whose engine may or may not be fixed; the screen cuts to black before we know if they reach open water.
Production Details
yes / 2 Seasons / 19 Episodes / 2018
Writer(s): Ram Nehari, Dana Modan, Assi Cohen
Producer(s): Debbie Pisani
Main Cast
Assi Cohen as Him
Dana Modan as Her
Dorin Atias as Sheli
Kim Or-Azulay as Gili
Noa Koler as
Yuval Banai as
Tikva Dayan as
Gilad Kahana as
Shahar Segal as
Yuval Segal as
