Review of Youssef Kerkour and Katherine Parkinson's new ITVX comedy

By starting with an overdose attempt and a heart attack, Significant Other couldn’t signal its intentions to be an unconventional romcom any more clearly. 

With its protagonists well into middle age and properly battered by life, this latest in the flurry of comedies helping launch the ITVX streaming service a far cry from a sentimental Richard Curtis narrative. But the promising premise also suffers from fundamental flaws that become more apparent as the series progresses.  The relationship stops and starts almost at random and, crucially, as a viewer you’re not quite sure whether you should be rooting for it at all.

Sam – Youssef Kerkour’s character who’s wolfing down the pills in that opening episode – certainly doesn’t seem ready to move on after his marriage break-up. He’s so in love with his estranged wife Shelley (Kelle Bryan) that he sobs over her loss even after sleeping with supposed love interest Anna (Katherine Parkinson) for the first time.

It’s Anna who inadvertently foiled his suicide attempt by knocking on his door midway through it. She lives next door and is suffering a heart attack, and was told not to wait for the paramedics alone. So when the ambulance crew does arrive, they have two patients to deal with.  In hospital the pair kind of hit it off, and when Sam needs a ‘significant other’ to sign off his discharge, he asks Anna, just for the sake of the paperwork.

As it happens, there’s rarely much better reason for them being together in the scripts, other than the fact they’re both lonely and short of other options. They only seem to get together because of boredom, then drift away just as casually.

Anna works from home and rarely leaves the house, and when, in episode three, she does pluck up the courage to use the apps to go a date (with the always welcome Mark Heap) it’s a disaster in a way you can absolutely see coming. Sam’s just too damaged by the collapse of his marriage to function properly. 

For all the many flaws in the premise – and the fact that writers Dana Fainaru and Hamish Wright often struggle to make the hopefulness of romance overcome the more depressing dramatic incidents – Significant Other is surprisingly watchable, thanks to the charisma of the two leads.

As Sam, Kerkour is a doe-eyed gentle bear of man, vulnerable and in need of a good hug, oozing pathos – with the careworn He-Man T-shirt he often wears adding to the little-boy-lost vibe. And to see Kerkour’s range, witness the contrast between Sam and intimidating inmate Megladon he plays in series four of Man Like Mobeen, which is also out today (on BBC iPlayer)

Meanwhile, Parkinson adds depth and empathy to Anna, who could, in lesser hands, be a one-dimensional sad-sack of a lonely middle-aged woman. And her facial expressions alone bring comedy to scenes that wasn’t in the script.

Even with such strong performances, Significant Other seems a little flat – especially when compared Colin From Account, which also dealt with a messily realistic fledging romance (albeit with younger leads) but in a much more joyous, funny way.

• Significant Other landed on ITVX today.

Review date: 8 Jun 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett