’s new Netflix comedy series is her at her best, featuring some cracking comedy and genuinely heartfelt moments.
A , Hard Cell has everything that makes a sitcom great: plenty of laughs, lovable characters and even a convincing will-they-won’t-they subplot (honestly, Jim and Pam who?).
You’ve got supporting characters with essentially minor roles but every sentence they do utter is a cracker; redemption arcs; enemies becoming friends; every favoured trope in the book.
And yes, this too is a cliché but you will laugh, and it is fairly likely you will cry as well.
As Hard Cell starts off, it seems straightforward enough: a fun, easy watch, good jokes, nothing to rave about.
But as it goes on it gains some serious heart – you genuinely feel for the characters, as exaggerated as they are; you’re invested in their stories and the fate of the prison.
Tate plays multiple characters in this chaotic ensemble, from well-meaning but essentially clueless prison governor Laura and prison guard Marco, as well as several inmates.
Now here’s the thing: Tate is a brilliant actress.
If you only know her from her sketch show (and the newly-released Nan movie based on one of her most famous characters) you might raise your eyebrows at that, but it’s the truth.
Tate is at her best when she’s not putting herself into a box or relying on semi-slapstick humour: her portrayal of the hilarious and heartbreaking Donna Noble in was magnificent, and we get to see that Tate come back a bit in this show.
But as good as it is (and it is, very good), it’s not without its issues, and the main one is: the accents. Among her ensemble of characters, Tate plays heavil-accented Irish and Scottish women, and one of the running jokes is a Welsh inmate nobody can understand.
Sure, the characters are written to be caricatures, but this makes it that bit more difficult to reign them in and make the audience feel for them when something goes wrong.
Somehow Tate does still achieve this, but certain scenes could have hit even harder if you weren’t cringing just a little bit at the pronunciation all the way through.
It’s also important to note that, while Hard Cell touches on important issues with incarceration, it is essentially a light-hearted comedy – it doesn’t try to solve anything, and it wouldn’t work if it did.
Overall, Hard Cell is a series Tate can be proud of.
Hard Cell arrives on Netflix on April 12
