As dramatic devices go: there’s nothing quite like an awkward dinner party for serving up some hot home truths. Just ask Jesus: organising passover dinner for his closest pals, only to accuse one of them of a future betrayal? Inspired. Producers of Towie couldn’t have plotted it better.
Two thousand years on and we still absolutely love to see it, especially on screen. While much of reality TV revolves around dining table bust-ups (from Made In Chelsea and Real Housewives to Come Dine With Me’s iconic “Dear lord, what a sad little life” outburst), at the heart of many fictional series you will find a meal so excruciating that it makes you want to stuff bread rolls in the characters’ faces just to stop them from talking.
The latest uncomfortable, push-your-food-around-on-the-plate meal can be found in White Lines, Netflix’s thoroughly mad thriller set in Ibiza. The setting: a gorgeous, candle-lit terrace on a balmy Balearic night, with platters of expensive sushi. But the friends barely make it through a single tuna nigiri before they turn on each other, making explosive claims and exposing some of the other diners’ darkest secrets.
In celebration of those who believe there’s no better place to reveal affairs or make friendship-rupturing comments, it’s time to raise your glasses to some of the most toe-clenchingly awful dinner parties ever committed to the small screen. Doggy bags all round, please.
Doctor Foster
BBC / Netflix
Menu: Pizza, pasta, salad, crudités and wine
An unannounced pair of guests turn up for dinner – a week early – and it totally throws the hosts off kilter. “We can rustle something up,” the unsuspecting man of the house says. “It’ll be fun!” Only if you’re the unhinged Dr Gemma Foster, hell-bent on exacting a public revenge for her husband shagging her friends’ younger daughter, Kate.
After announcing the affair to her parents – and revealing that Kate had an abortion – Kate snaps and says: “You’re a fucking bitch!” “A bitch is right,” Gemma responds. “And I’m a wolf tonight!” she adds, stopping just short of howling out like Shakira’s She Wolf. Kate then smashes Gemma in the back of the head. Absolute power moves.
Succession
HBO / Sky / NOW TV
Menu: Sausages, fresh from the day’s hunting expedition
Come on the Waystar Royco annual jolly, they said. It’ll be a laugh! Unsuspecting employees are herded to an opulent dining room where the big boss, Logan Roy, swiftly turns what should have been a slap-up meat feast into a sadistic parlour game. It’s Boar on the Floor time and he’s hell-bent on smoking out the mole in the pack. Tom and Greg are among the humiliated guests forced to crawl on the floor and ordered to “Oink for your sausages, piggies!”, while son Roman takes great delight in capturing the porcine scrabble for posterity. Maybe it’s a traditional Hungarian thing? Anyway, zero stars on TripAdvisor for this hunting lodge restaurant.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
HBO / Sky / NOW TV
Menu: Steak, green beans, potatoes, red wine and water (non-filtered)
Larry David lives to throw a hand-grenade into any social situation, leading Jeff, his long-suffering agent, to brand him “a social assassin”. For classic, undiluted Larry, let’s revisit dinner at Marty Funkhouser’s new girlfriend’s place. First, Larry refuses to “cheers” with his wine glass, then pontificates how nice it must be to stab someone, and suggests setting up “a stabbing range”. But the hill he chooses to di[n]e on is the quality of the tap water he has been served by his host. She, mortified at being watershamed by a guest, kicks him out for being rude. Off he chuckles, ready to find the next meal he can ruin.
Big Little Lies
HBO / Sky / NOW TV
Menu: Spaghetti, salad, red wine/milk
Monterey’s scheming serpent of a granny, Mary-Louise (Meryl Streep), is lamenting the death of her golden boy (“My Perry!”) to his young twin sons over a pasta dinner. We, the viewers, and his wife, Celeste, know that Perry was a rapist and a domestic abuser, so forgive us if we’re a little quiet in joining in on the eulogising. Mary-Lou has got us covered though, and lets out an almighty scream, beats her breast and bangs the table. “What, my grief is too loud for you?” she laughs at Celeste. Yes, Mary-Lou, her and everybody else in a 10-mile radius. If the boys weren’t traumatised enough by their dad’s death, this dinner table primal scream guarantees another few years of therapy.
Fleabag
BBC / Amazon Prime
Menu: Steak, green beans, carrots and potatoes, wine and tequila
This whole episode is a forced show of jolly happy families that Fleabag has to play along with and, ooof, we feel it. It’s set in a restaurant that’s so posh it’s instantly anxiety-inducing; her father is now engaged to her odious godmother, who has brought along a hot priest for company. Fleabag’s sister, Claire, is still not talking to her – after her husband lied about molesting her – and it’s taking all the tequila in the world for Fleabag just to smile, nod her head and shut up, like her family wants her to do. But then: a miscarriage and a punch up provide the perfect get-out clause for both sisters. Taxi for two, please.
Peep Show
Channel 4 / Netflix
Menu: Moroccan pasta (mashed baked beans, white sauce, lettuce, eggs and tagliatelle) and Moroccan cocktail (Rum, water, lettuce, vinegar and salt)
In one of Peep Show’s most hilarious episodes, Mark’s stalker-like qualities – which he no doubt regards as charming, rom-com gestures – rear their head. He throws a dinner party for a (married) woman he previously lied to and followed to Dartmouth University. “I just need to cook a meal so delicious she’ll make love to me,” he tells Jez, before scribbling “LOVE YOU” on his eyelids. It’s already got the makings of the worst soiree ever, and that’s before the woman in question brings along her dull husband, and two of Jez’s life-coaching clients – a couple, both of whom he’s currently shagging – join the mortifying proceedings. There’s footsie, tears, arguments and a fight played out over the worst food since Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. “Freak-show sideshow at the shit show,” Mark succinctly brands it. Yep, that just about sums it up. Got any more of that tangy cocktail left?
