Opposites attract in Mindy Kaling’s fresh and funny take on the male, pale and some would say stale-dominated world of late night television chat shows.

In the red, white and blue corner, Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson), the sole female host whose once luminous star is on the wane after two decades at the top. Unable or unwilling to adapt her dry if principled style in order to appeal to the mainstream – she berates the network head (Amy Ryan) for dumbing down her craft to “three and a half-minute chunks of filler between commercials” – her ratings are dropping faster and lower than Trump’s pussy-grabbing mitts at a beauty pageant.

In the brown corner, Molly Patel (director Mindy Kaling), “a vibrant splash of colour on the grey canvas” of Newbury’s all-male writing pool who after entering an essay competition at a Pennsylvanian chemical plant where she worked in quality control finds herself in the right place at the right time, courtesy of a diversity quota, to right the wrongs of her boss’s gradual demise. Embrace social media, she opines. Share your personal beliefs. But above all, “f**k how things work”.

The one-liners come thick and fast, predominantly from the Venus flytrap mouth of Thompson who is as waspishly wonderful as she is heartfelt and human. On the one hand, dismissing the latest in a long line of network bosses with the withering put down, “I have seen Somalian warlords who have more job stability than you.” On the other, defending her honour in a straight-to-camera piece about double standards in the media when a tabloid splash puts her marriage to her Parkinson’s-stricken husband Walter (John Lithgow) on the rocks.

If you have a problem, says Molly, you should ask a chemist because “they always have a solution”. Boom boom! And though her humour may not be as brash as the hip comedian lined up to replace her “old bag” of a boss (Ike Barinholtz), her perseverance and optimism fuelled by her penchant for pinning up postered quotes by W B Yates – “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams” – inspires Newbury to change her style and challenge her critics in a moving stand-up slot which morphs into a cry of eureka.

The premise of Molly swapping a chemical for a comedy factory is as flimsy as Theresa May’s boast of demonstrating “strong and stable” leadership. But the rest of Kaling’s screenplay is a joy. Thompson at her mercurial best, shifting between comedy and tragedy at the swig of a bourbon breakfast. Ganatra effervescent as the brown girl in the white ring of privilege. An unlikely double act who together confront the thorny issues of institutional sexism and racism at the heart of TV and prove that it is better not to be all-white on the night.

Director: Nisha Ganatra
Writer: Mindy Kaling (screenplay by)
Stars: Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, John Lithgow

 

Peter Callaghan
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