Horgan's Youth Caps Pulling-Catastrophe Trilogy on HBO Max — SkimNews
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- Sharon Horgan stars in and co-conceives Youth on HBO Max as Alex, a fiftysomething literary agent and divorcee whose son departs for university, triggering a tentative re-entry into dating and work ambition
- Youth is framed by Horgan as the third part of a loose trilogy following Pulling (co-written with Dennis Kelly, unexpectedly cancelled by the BBC) and Catastrophe (written by Horgan with Rob Delaney)
- Rupert Friend plays Patrick, a 'charming borderline cad' and never-quite-boyfriend to Alex, while Tim McInnerney plays Michael in a sex scene the reviewer argues belongs in 'the pantheon of greats' — with Alex negotiating cunnilingus and declaring 'I can't return the favour. But I don't know you well enough yet to be selfish in bed'
- Sharlene Whyte plays Sam, Alex's boss and friend whose shifting dynamic is described as one of the show's 'thickening agents'
- Workplace subplots pit Alex against Douglas Hodge as Malcolm, a former client whose dreadful romantasy novel 'The Goblin Seed' goes viral on TikTok, and Anne Reid as a bestselling elderly author whose books have taken a 'porno-racist turn'
- The review characterises Youth as Horgan's 'even more brutal, even more hilarious take on life's third act,' dwelling in truth with men, children and colleagues as fully realised as the female and perimenopausal characters she is best known for writing
Why it matters: Youth completes a Horgan-authored arc that began with the BBC's abrupt cancellation of Pulling and ran through her Channel 4 and Amazon collaboration with Delaney on Catastrophe, giving her a vehicle again built around a single Horgan performance rather than a co-lead pairing.
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