In the evenings, lonely as hell, I would stare fixedly at dubbed episodes of Beverly Hills , desperately trying to make sense out of them.
A quarter of a century later and things have changed — a bit. Several high-quality French TV shows have found success outside France, including the well-regarded crime drama Spiral. However, comedies have remained few and far between. Based around the experiences of former talent agent Dominique Besnehard, the series was first released in on French terrestrial station France 2. It soon made it onto Netflix, and has been a word of mouth success ever since. Its slow burn popularity reached a crescendo this year, with the UK release of the fourth and final series.
One of the most appealing and consistently funniest features of Call My Agent have been the cameos in each episode by well-known and sometimes iconic French actors, who are willing to send themselves up for our entertainment.
One of the funniest early episodes features the actor Jean Dujardin going totally feral after a draining role, which prompts him to relocate to his garden and refuse to wash. More recently, I enjoyed the Sigourney Weaver episode hugely and it made me realise that as a UK viewer we are missing out on quite a few in-jokes, simply because the French actors are inevitably so much better known in their native country.
But you certainly do not need to be an expert on French cinema to enjoy this show, which is a mix of soap opera and high comedy. Screenwriter Fanny Herrero was involved with the first three seasons, but the final season was developed without her input though she apparently has a new development deal with Netflix. It shows, to a degree: in the final season some of the characters feel inconsistently drawn, and others are underdeveloped, while it sometimes takes the credulity-stretching too far.
