Review: Turn Up Charlie Doesn’t Spin Comedy Gold But Idris Elba Shines

The show pulls in too many directions at once, many of them far removed from the sporadic charm of its concept.

Turn Up Charlie
Photo: Netflix

Pairing Idris Elba with a sassy kid in a sitcom sounds like an inoffensive, even endearing proposition. The series could feasibly coast on their chemistry and Elba’s marquee value, piling up seasons of comfortable comedy. On the surface, that’s what Turn Up Charlie seems like it wants to do. But for eight episodes, the series pulls in too many directions at once, many of them far removed from the sporadic charm of its concept.

Elba stars as Charlie Ayo, a one-hit wonder DJ who blew all his cash during his 15 minutes of fame and now sends the residuals to his parents while living with his aunt (Jocelyn Jee Esien). He’s not necessarily a slacker, just a guy whose life isn’t where he’d like it to be, and certainly a long way from the comeback he hopes for. Charlie’s luck, however, changes once he reunites with his childhood friend, David (JJ Feild), a now-famous actor married to Sara (Piper Perabo), a more famous DJ with the cultural cachet and in-home production studio to potentially relaunch Charlie’s career. The problem: Instead of working on his music, Charlie agrees to nanny David and Sara’s daughter, Gabrielle (Frankie Hervey), who’s so precocious that she labels herself as such when she isn’t saying things like “bitch, please.”

Gabrielle and her folks have moved to Britain from Los Angeles, both to enroll her in school and encourage more family time. Her parents are still, of course, focused on their careers, so Gabrielle is often left with Charlie to act out when she’s not devastated by her perpetual disappointment. If this sounds saccharine, clichéd, and more than a little irritating, it sometimes is. But it’s also the only thing that Turn Up Charlie has going for it.

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The rest of the series is dedicated to bafflingly long tangents about Charlie’s music career, Sara and David’s rocky marriage, and other threads of so little note that their reappearance feels like the writers suddenly remembered they existed. Supporting characters are hardly developed, feeling as if they’ve been dropped in as if from out of nowhere, and then the series tries to mine them for a drama that’s supposed to have been simmering entirely off screen. At times, the effect is so sloppy and abrupt that it feels like episodes are missing.

Elba and Hervey have a fun, abrasive dynamic that’s legitimately charming when the series is willing to get out of their way. Watching their characters bond is neither original nor affecting, but it’s totally acceptable as background noise. Elba in particular takes to television comedy with total ease, leveraging his formidable presence to convey comic exasperation as Charlie is frequently disarmed by the kid he’s supposed to watch. In other words, not even Turn Up Charlie can totally kill Elba’s natural charisma by bludgeoning it to death with a turntable. But as Charlie careens from one baffling decision to the next, it sure seems determined to try.

Score: 
 Cast: Idris Elba, Piper Perabo, JJ Feild, Frankie Hervey, Jade Anouka, Jocelyn Jee Esien, Angela Griffin, Guz Khan  Network: Netflix  Buy: Amazon

Steven Scaife

Steven Nguyen Scaife is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Buzzfeed News, Fanbyte, Polygon, The Awl, Rock Paper Shotgun, EGM, and others. He is reluctantly based in the Midwest.

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