Review of C4's new comedy crime caper with the People Just Do Nothing team

Fictional heists normally come with a touch of elan, whether the glitzy suave of Ocean’s Eleven or the rougher underworld charisma of a Guy Ritchie ensemble.

Not so the ragtag crew of The Curse. These are a group of hapless East Enders in the 1980s, struggling to make ends meet on fringes of legality – and who find themselves handed the opportunity to make a quick, dodgy buck.

Feeling as if they have to change their lives from ‘bit parts in someone else’s story’, these lads are so far from the wheeler-dealers of People Just Do Nothing, most of whose creators combine with Tom Davis and his regular off-screen collaborator James De Frond here – albeit 30 years back in time. But there’s one big difference: they DO get rich quick.

Sidney (Steve Stamp) gets a job at a warehouse where security is lax. He reckons they could easily walk away with £50,000, no drama. ‘I just turn my back,’ he says, and his mates walk out with the booty. They all agree – after all they’ve nothing to lose – but with echoes of the real Brink’s-Mat robbery of 1983, they accidentally stumble on £30million of gold bullion.

Such a haul means suddenly they are much bigger criminals than they ever thought. And as the title suggests, this series is not so much about the heist – which comes at the end of the first episode – but its consequences.

There are shades of the darker Ealing comedies here, both in the set-up and in the humour, that’s usually underplayed. You buy into the luckless characters and are held by the plot, Laughing out loud is rarer – although the clueless planning of the operation on a snooker table is a very funny scene.

As well as Sidney, who is racked with nerves and doubts the moment his own operation swings into action, we have Albert, the mild-mannered greasy spoon owner easily led, not least by his wife Tash (Emer Kenny, in a standout performance).

Davis is Mick, the weirdest of the lot in his ill-fitting tank-top. He’s a teller of tall tales in the weirdest accent any side of the Dartford tunnel. His oddity certainly takes some getting used to. Then there’s Phil (Hugo Chegwin) who likes to think he’s a gangster kingpin and gives himself the nickname ‘The Captain’. In fact he’s just a driver for the real thing:  the effortlessly menacing Joe and ‘Crazy’ Clive – whose calm control shows just how out of their depth our anti-heroes are.

The Curse boasts much of the heist genre essentials: savvy scene-setting voiceover, hip soundtrack, self-consciously conspicuous editing tricks. The production is movie quality on a Channel 4 comedy shoestring, fully evoking the period details early 1980s London, while actually shooting in 2021 Liverpool.

Eighties references abound, from the lure of a Breville sandwich-maker to our would-be criminal masterminds sitting around discussing the practicalities of Club Tropicana’s ‘all the drinks are free’ policy. It could be a direct rip-off/homage to the Like A Virgin conversation between Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, but it only serves to underline how uncool this mob are in comparrison.

They don’t talk in slick zingers or gaggy jokes; but that only makes it easier to  root for these out-of-their-depth clods as the pressure of living with what they’ve done ramps up. 

And after Tash drops a bombshell cliffhanger at the end of episode one, you’re sure to be be back to find out what happens next.

• All episodes of The Curse are on All4 now and will continue its linear broadcast at 10pm next Sunday. Read an interview with the cast and creators here.

Review date: 6 Feb 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett