November was one hell of a month for Alan Carr.
At the start of the month, the comedian won the first series of BBC1's 'The Celebrity Traitors' and £87,500 for his chosen charity, Neuroblastoma UK after duping his fellow contestants.
Dismissed as an unlikely traitor, he deceived most of his fellow contestants into believing he couldn't be one and entertained the nation by initially sweating profusely as he struggled befire betraying several of them.
If that wasn't enough, the third series of his semi-autobiographical sitcom 'Changing Ends' has hit our screens and the great news is that it's as delightful as ever.
By far the funniest sitcom ITV has ever produced, the show ended its second season with Alan's football manager dad, Shaun Dooley's Graham steering his East Midlands side, Northampton Town to promotion and also defending his son's honour.
Oliver Savell's Alan continued to awkwardly navigate his pre-teen years with a foray into the world of fake IDs.
There was also a hunt for a knickers thief terrorising his neighbourhood, tales of a stray dog scaring local families and his nan, sex education before a school disco and a memorable caravan holiday in Great Yarmouth.
Heading into the third series with the onset of adolescence, Savell continues to brilliantly mimic Carr - looking and sounding even more like him now with his broken voice.
By way of reference, the comedian continues to frequently appear as the show's narrator, breaking the fourth wall as he irreverently and nostalgically looks back on life in the 1980s.
While clearly camp, teenage Alan's sexuality becomes even more of an issue this series as he falls for Austin Taylor's fellow school pupil Jake.
Peer pressure and teenage homophobia means Alan pretends not to be gay, claiming to have a thing for Lucy Chambers' fellow pupil Georgie and choosing her because her name sounds like a boy's.
Alan continues to struggle with his lack of sportiness, dodging weekend swimming lessons in the local leisure centre with his younger brother, Taylor Fay's Gary in the first episode.
As Gary goes through the motions by hiding in the leisure centre changing rooms, Alan chooses instead to go into town to browse through the suggestive posters in the shop, Athena where Jake has a part time job.
Rumbled by the swimming instructor and forced to go by his parents to the lessons, Alan panics when Jake and some other teenagers from his school turn up and threaten to expose the shame of him learning to swim in the children's pool.
Luckily, Gary comes to the rescue with an ingenious plan to distract everyone from Alan's lack of sporting prowess.
Meanwhile their mum, Nancy Sullivan's Christine basks in the glory of her husband's success as a football manager until she puts her foot in it in an interview with the local newspaper and has to regain her neighbours' respect with a barbecue.
Christine continues to be belittled by Gabby Best's jealous, competitive, vain and nosey neighbour Angela Hudson, while Graham struggles to come to terms with the pressures of managing a team in a higher league.
With Northampton Town needing to step up a gear, he badgers Colin Salmon's club chairman Ron for funds who dodges Graham's requests to invest in the team.
In another episode, Alan discovers darts as he visits his aunt, Kellie Shirley's Terri in a trip to London that doesn't quite turn out as he imagined.
Alan also engages a psychic to predict his future in the barbecue episode after being appalled that his career teacher's Commodore 64 computer has predicted he will be a prison officer.
During a heatwave, he also dabbles in a bit of creative writing but suddenly realises he has shared a little too much in his prize winning essay which is read aloud in the school assembly by his favourite teacher, Carriad Lloyd's Miss Gideon.
There's a chance to bond with his dad as Alan goes on a trek to Preston with Graham and the struggling Northampton team, while Christine hosts a raucous tupperware party organised in her home with Angela.
Finally, there's an episode where Alan and his school friend, Dotty Davies' Kay's excitement over camping in a tent in his back garden during the ITV Telethon is tempered by the arrival of Georgie, Jake and others who have similar plans at Angela's house.
'Changing Ends' remains sharply written by Carr, Best and Simon Carlyle in Series Three and is breezily directed by Dave Lambert.
While Savell's performance as Carr dominates the show, Dooley, Sullivan, Best, Salmon, Lloyd, Fay, Davies, Harry Peacock as Angela's husband Nigel also continue to deliver many laughs.
Nitin Ganatra and Dave Mumeni briefly reappear as the school's principal Mr Robertson and PE teacher, Mr Chapman.
However Series Three keeps things fresh with the introduction of Taylor, Chambers and Shirley's new characters as well as others like Logan Matthews' bullying pupil Leslie Gorman, a sleazy new figure at the football club, Tom Bennett's Nick and a gay couple who move into the neighbourhood, Tok Stephen's Tom and David Ames' Jez.
Carr, Best and Carlyle not only draw from amusing anecdotes from the comedian's afolescence but are clever enough to tap into middle age nostalgia for kitsch TV in the 1980s, early mobile phones that were the size of a brick, taping chart songs from the radio and the perviness of posters in Athena.
While followers of 'Changing Ends' are now firmly invested in the characters, the sitcom still regularly delivers laugh out loud moments and that is all you can ask of a show like this.
With a fourth series already in the can, long may Carr and his collaborators continue to hit the back of the net.
(Series 3 of 'Changing Ends' was broadcast on ITV between November 23-27, 2025 with all episodes made available for streaming on ITVx on November 23, 2025)
Comments
Post a Comment