Man vs. Child review – Rowan Atkinson’s festive slapstick is the most corny Christmas show ever | television

TRevor Bingley is no Mr. Bean, but the two have some things in common. Initially, they are both self-destructive when it comes to getting over petty annoyances. In the 2022 Netflix series Man vs Bee, Bingley ends up building a fake cell filled with explosives to destroy a bug that has refused to vacate the stately home he’s been sitting in; For Bean, life consists almost exclusively of finding ridiculous solutions to simple problems. They’re both pathetic characters: Bean because he’s a walking disaster zone; Bingley because he is lonely and broke, having lost many jobs due to general incompetence. And last but not least, they’re both portrayed by Rowan Atkinson, who gives the duo his distinct brand of unease.

However, there are significant differences. Bingley is a human being who can speak, is aware of social niceties and has a backstory, which mainly features his teenage daughter whom he adores and refers to gratefully as “Sweetpea”. Bean, on the other hand, was essentially broadcast from space: some episodes of the original 1990s series begin with him falling from the sky bathed in a strange light source.

However, Man vs Bee – co-written by Atkinson and writer Will Davies – is essentially a reimagined Bean for the streaming era: a comedy with a backdrop of aspirational luxury that manages to pull off the kind of overwrought, scream-inducing, reaction-ridden farce for which audiences have been so starved lately. Man vs Bee also had a strong emotional throughline: Our hearts were clearly meant to bleed for Bingley, who wanted to take his daughter camping but had to cancel due to his new job. It wasn’t a tragedy of epic proportions (he even ended up in prison), but it made sense. Don’t expect the same to follow.

In Man vs. Child, Bingley is back struggling to make ends meet in the chocolate box village of the Home Counties. It’s Christmas and he has just been let go as elementary school superintendent. His final function is to assist in birth (don’t waste the opportunity to unabashedly channel love into reality). There he discovers a child on the doorstep. This must be the local kid playing Jesus in the play!

Worryingly, however, this is not the case – so when Bingley arrives at a lucrative last-minute house party in central London, he attempts to hand the child over to the police (who are too busy to help) and then to social services, who assume that the child is a figment of Bingley’s imagination after having temporarily misplaced him in his home. (Save your cries of incomprehension, there’s a lot of foolishness to come.) There’s only one thing for this: smuggle the unknown kid into the penthouse he’s taking care of over the holidays and hope the authorities round him up sharp.

Things are going as smoothly as possible. Bingley – lest we forget for a moment – is a devoted father, so he knows well how to take care of his child. Yes, he makes eccentric choices (the cork is replaced with a doll), but he generally lives in harmony with the infant while he waits for the strangely unbothered Westminster social services to arrive. In fact, such is his newfound competence that the slapstick and other laughs are thin on the ground; Bingley even prepares an elaborate Christmas dinner without breaking a sweat.

One of the critics’ complaints about Man vs Bee was the product placement (Miele, Waitrose). This time, Cadbury Heroes have been highlighted on multiple occasions. I had to laugh when Bingley handed a box of food to the young family sitting in the basement of a luxury apartment block (the less said about this ridiculous subplot the better), and told them that the sweets produced by Britain’s best chocolate brand were “really nice, actually!”. The difference here is that these product placements are a far cry from the more cynical thing about Man vs Baby, which trades in Cozy British Christmascore in the most hackneyed way possible, presenting its celebration of festive togetherness with cloying warmth.

And yet, we watch because – as seems obligatory for all streaming shows – there is a dark mystery at the heart of Man vs Baby. That is, someone who is tormented by the loss of his child? Or worse yet, who isn’t?

In this case, any troubling subtext is distorted by a supernatural machine, which is frankly bananas. I wish the same could be said for the action itself, which never escalates into the massive, socially destructive physical comedy we’ve come to expect from Atkinson. Instead, we get a ridiculous and illogical dose of Christmas cheer led by a good-hearted and capable man. Mr. Bean would never do that.