Make That Movie

From the mind of Sam Campbell, the magic of moviemaking just got weird – and we’re here for it. The Australian comedian is a welcome peculiarity within the current British comedy landscape. There’s no one quite like him, and it’s therefore unsurprising that he would birth Make That Movie, a series that has no competitor nor comparee.

Playing a fictional version of himself, Campbell is a starry-eyed filmmaker and head of Make That Movie, a company devoted to bringing the cinematic dreams of ordinary Britons alive. There is no premise too absurd for Sam’s band of misfits, which includes Winnie (David Hargreaves), a veteran cinematographer who once worked on prestigious productions, and intimacy coordinator Sebastian (Aaron Chen), whose wealthy family bankrolls the entire operation, à la Frank Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In the first episode, the owner of a printing shop finally realises his dream of making a movie about a man and woman who turn into snakes (only not at the same time), and his two employees are cast in the lead roles.

Campbell is an Adam Kaufman-esque presence, childlike and lacking the sort of self-awareness that would otherwise lend cynicism to his quirkiness. Playing runner Jess, Lara Ricote, who was a standout in last year’s Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping, complements Campbell by imbuing Jess’s idealism with just the faintest hint of pragmatism. Helen Bauer, as sound engineer (and at times workplace enforcer), Pat, excels as the straight-woman amid the zaniness.

There’s something undeniably charming about watching media about making media, be it Steve Martin’s iconic Bowfinger, or The Disaster Artist and Ed Wood, both based on their own real-life childlike mavericks. Indeed, a scene in the first episode in which a printing shop employee watches his onscreen performance with all the assuredness of an A-list Hollywood actor is unmistakably redolent of the famous cinema screening in Bowfinger.

Campbell’s humour is wholly idiosyncratic and all the better for it. This is why Make That Movie is at its best when it commits fully to the absurdity. For instance, an episode that deals with schoolgirls with less than wholesome moviemaking motives doesn’t land as well as the earnest underdog tales.

When it leans into the sincerity of its oddball film-pitchers, the series excels in its whimsy. Delightfully offbeat, Make That Movie finds joy in the eccentricities of society’s weird and wonderful cohort.