Still Up is a romcom, but without the rollicking, rollercoaster vibe the word usually implies. Danny (Craig Roberts) and Lisa (Antonia Thomas) are chronic insomniacs whose interactions take place almost wholly over the phone, late at night or painfully early in the morning when the rest of the world sleeps. Danny is also agoraphobic. The origins of his condition are not initially revealed but it comes increasingly into play as the eight-part series goes on. Theirs is a world of semi-whispered conversations and intimacy forged of necessity as much as attraction.
To have it all play out at night-time is a new, if gentle, twist on the friends-to-lovers trope. The lead characters are charming and the actors have great chemistry considering that they are rarely on the same set at the same time. Danny is, naturally, in his flat; Lisa wanders hither and yon, using the dead hours for such errands as retail opening hours and bus timetables allow. For the first few episodes they get through the dark hours by bantering, swapping stories of the useless sleeping tips well-meaning folk have given them (“Wear a hatful of lavender”), pondering the utility of a sleep clinic Lisa is planning to visit, setting up Danny’s online dating account and assorted other trivia. We learn bits of backstory – such as Danny’s traumatising breakup with girlfriend Chloe three years ago – and pick up in lots of tiny ways (and larger ones, like Lisa accidentally matching with a 91% compatibility rate with him when his dating profile goes live) that they are perfect – well, nearly – for each other.
Were it not for the charisma of Roberts and Thomas, Still Up would probably prove far too slow a burn to keep viewers through the four or five episodes it takes to pull the disparate threads together and become something other than a meandering examination of their unsatisfactory lives. The first half of the series feels thin and underdeveloped. It is full of such staples as a weird man across the hall from Danny’s flat, who holds parties for his cats and speaks oddly (Rich Fulcher, in the credits as simply Cat Man) and whom Danny must do increasingly outlandish things to avoid, and in the other flat a man so well-meaning it verges on simplemindedness (Adam, played by Luke Fetherston). There is Veggie (Blake Harrison), Lisa’s inadequate partner, reading The History of Bricks – a quintessential first-thought title – to his stepdaughter to get her to sleep. There are a lot of “jokes” that depend on someone simply saying “You’re [verb]ing, aren’t you?” and the other one laughingly agreeing. And plenty of moments that ring jarringly untrue. Music-loving Danny, for example, may well have been in a band in his pre-agoraphobic days, but probably not with a candelabra on his head. Come on.
In the latter half of the series, things improve greatly (not least because it sees the return of personal trainer Amy – Lois Chimimba – as Danny’s potential love interest, who enlivens episode three and punches up every scene she is in). The emotional stew thickens, the pace picks up, secondary characters are given something to get their teeth into and things progress instead of moving in slightly desultory circles. Investment is rewarded, but if a second series is commissioned – which there is scope for, given how the first ends – it would be great to see it restart at this kind of pitch and not require quite such a gradual climb to the narrative summit. You really shouldn’t have a romantic comedy centred on insomniacs that even remotely threatens to put its audience to sleep.
• Still Up starts on Apple TV+ on 22 September.
