FIND YOUR VOICE (THE MARVELOUS MRS MAISEL, SEASON ONE)
There's something wonderful about those snappy New York comedies where family members trade banter and puncture each others' pomposity.
Woody Allen has built a filmmaking career on that.
So has Paul Mazursky, Noah Baumbach and the late Neil Simon.
Add to the list Amy Sherman Palladino, whose Amazon Prime series 'The Marvellous Mrs Maisel' is a colourful tale of a 1950s Manhattan housewife finding her voice as a stand-up comic.
At the start of Sherman Palladino's show, Rachel Brosnahan's Miriam "Midge" Masel seems to have it all.
Midge is a bright, witty mother of two.
She is married to a nice Jewish boy with great career prospects, Michael Zegen's Joel who works at his uncle's plastics factory and whose sarcastic father, Kevin Pollak's Moishe runs a garment company.
Joel's mum, Caroline Aaron's Shirley dotes over him.
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© Amazon PrimeMidge's socialite mum, Marin Hinkle's Rose and her academic father, Tony Shalhoub's Abe Weissman, a Maths professor at Columbia, live next door in a huge Upper West Side apartment.
Joel, however, has an itch he needs to scratch.
He wants to be a stand up comic.
The problem is: he isn't good at it.
© Amazon PrimeMidge, nevertheless, dutifully attends his many attempts to make it as a comic at a weekly gig in the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village.
Before the end of the first episode, her life is suddenly turned upside down when a gig at the Gaslight goes really badly for Joel.
Over the course of a fraught evening, Joel reveals he has been having an affair with his secretary, Holly Curran's Penny Pann.
It is precisely at this moment of crisis when Midge finds her comic voice.
© Amazon PrimeFuelled by drink, she turns up at the Gaslight and gets up onstage and earns raucous laughter as she offloads on the audience her observations about just how miserable her life is.
Midge ends up getting arrested for baring her breasts and finds herself in the back of a police car with Luke Kirby's edgy comic Lenny Bruce who has also been arrested for obscenity.
Her performance at the Gaslight has, however, caught the attention of its manager, Alex Borstein's Susie Myerson who wants to manage her as a stand up.
After Susie bails her out, Midge returns to the police station to bail out Lenny Bruce.
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© Amazon PrimeNow the comedy itch is hers to scratch - although she needs to be convinced by Susie that it's worth scratching.
It also becomes clear Midge's successful drunken stand up comedy baptism was no fluke.
However the question begs: does she have the confidence and the desire to pursue stand up as a career?
We know from the off Midge is funny.
Indeed the pilot begins with Midge holding court at her wedding, with a very funny bridal speech.
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© Amazon PrimeHowever this takes that natural talent to a whole other level but first she also has to figure out how to be a mother raising two kids - one of whom she says looks like Winston Churchill - in a broken marriage.
The break-up of Joel and her marriage upsets both sets of parents.
But the shock is compounded at a dinner with her ex, Abe, Rose, Shirley and Moishe when she learns Joel is broke and that her father in law has been paying for their apartment all along.
Not only that, Moishe is now intending to evict her.
This triggers another return to the Gaslight, another rapturously received comedic rant and another arrest - this time for obscene language.
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© Amazon PrimeThis time, Lenny Bruce bails her out.
The rest of the series sees Midge warm to the idea of becoming a stand-up, although she builds her career in secret, away from the critical gaze of her family and of Joel's.
Midge gets a day job in the cosmetics section of the B Altman and Company department store in midtown Manhattan.
As she learns her comic craft at night, she bombs at one gig with material supplied by Wallace Shawn's tired comedy writer Herb Smith.
© Amazon PrimeColleagues at the department store hire her, though, to perform privately at their own parties and having listened to records by other comedians, a bootleg recording of one early comedy club performance starts to garner attention.
Susie gets her a spot opening for Jane Lynch's popular but tired old style comedy act, Jane Lynch's Sophie Lennon.
But how long will it be before Joel and her family discovers Midge's new found gift for comedy?
© Amazon PrimeAnd how will Joel deal with their failed marriage being the butt of her jokes?
Sherman Palladino first came to prominence as the creator of the WB network's popular comedy drama 'The Gilmore Girls'.
Like that show, 'The Marvellous Mrs Maisel' relies on rapid fire screwball comic delivery, with sassy one liners.
However it is further elevated by the whip smart performances of Brosnahan and the rest of the cast and the striking production and costume design from Bill Groom and Donna Zakowska.
© Amazon PrimeIt helps, no doubt, that Amy Sherman Palladino and her husband Daniel have written and directed some of the episodes.
Although it has to be acknowledged that writer Scott Ellis and director Sheila Lawrence handle the episode they are involved in really well - fitting perfectly into the mould the Palladinos have set.
Brosnahan turns in a delightful Emmy, Critics Choice and Golden Globe award winning lead actress performance - bursting with wit and charm.
It's a performance that marks her out as a talented star who knows how to delicately balance the darker dramatic moments with the light comedy, as and when required.
© Amazon PrimeHowever Bornstein is also an excellent foil for Brosnahan as Susie - mixing an earthy tomboyishness with a streak of vulnerability.
And if it isn't immediately apparent, it soon becomes clear that 'The Marvelous Mrs Maisel' isn't just about Midge achieving her potential and walking tall in a male dominated world.
It's about Susie doing that too.
In truth, everyone from Zegen to Shalhoub and Hinkle to Pollack, Aaron, Kirby and Lynch is a joy to watch in this show.
© Amazon PrimeAt times, Sherman Palladino and her fellow writers worryingly toy with the old "will they, won't they?" dynamics of other, lesser sitcoms when it comes to Midge and Joel.
However they avoid succumbing to the temptation of treading that well worn path and instead revel in a tale of female empowerment.
Where the show really flies is when it is celebrating Midge coming out from behind the role society has pigeonholed her in, only for her to bear her comic fangs.
And when she does so, it's uplifting and funny.
© Amazon PrimeIt pushes 'The Marvelous Mrs Maisel' right up there with the best of Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Paul Mazursky and Noah Baumbach - with its writers knowing exactly when to turn on the tap for drama and when to turn on the tap for humour.
A subplot about Abe being recruited into Bell Labs has potential for future series, as does Jane Lynch's deluded comic hack Sophie Lennon who has forged a career seeking easy laughs while wearing a fatsuit and pretending to be a blue collar broad known as Sophie from Queens.
In a world where we're bombarded by shows of varying quality on streaming services and traditional TV channels, 'The Marvelous Maisel' takes its first strides with confidence and a real vivacity.
© Amazon PrimeThe comic chemistry between Brosnahan and Bornstein is central to making it a delight to watch.
But Shalhoub's performance is a treat too in a flood of great performances.
Viewers watching Season One will feel if it can maintain its sparkle, 'The Marvelous Mrs Maisel' could be a bright light in an often grim landscape of dramas about narcissists and sociopaths.
That prospect is very welcome indeed.
(The pilot of 'The Marvelous Mrs Maisel' was released on Amazon Prime on March 17, 2017, with the rest of Season One made available on November 29, 2017).
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