Television series
Youth
Sharon Horgan plays a fifty-year-old divorcee chasing sex and love while her parents fail, her body changes, and her nearly-grown son shows no sign of leaving. Expect the familiar Horgan mix of filthy jokes and genuine ache — funny about the indignities of midlife, honest about how exhausting it is to be needed by everyone at once. For anyone who has ever felt crowded out of their own house.
If you liked this
Catastrophe2015
Same creator, same appetite for messy honesty about sex and love, just younger and rawer — this is where Horgan's voice started, and it's blistering.
But It's about a marriage in its first chaotic year, not a divorce in its fiftieth.
Bad Sisters2022no page yet
Horgan again, but darker and more plotted, proving she can do black comedy with actual teeth and a body count.
But It's a murder mystery at heart, not a character study of midlife dating.
Motherland2016
The same brutal, funny eye for family exhaustion and domestic indignity, British to its bones and just as unsentimental.
But Focuses on school-age kids and playground politics rather than sex or ailing parents.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Shirley Valentine1989no page yet
The same woman rediscovering her appetite for sex and self after a life spent serving everyone else, told with warmth instead of cynicism.
A Liverpool housewife escapes to Greece and rediscovers desire and self after decades of being invisible in her own marriage — funny, tender, and decades ahead of its time.
But Stagier and more monologue-driven than modern comedy, and its idea of liberation feels very much of 1989.
More like this (8)
Fleabag2016
The same appetite for a woman's messy interior life laid bare, grief and desire tangled together, and writing this sharp is rare.
But Younger protagonist, more surreal and confessional, less interested in caregiving than in guilt.
Grace and Frankie2015
Older women rebuilding romantic lives after divorce, with a warm ensemble and American gloss on very similar terrain.
But Broader and more sitcom-shaped, with far less bite than Horgan's usual register.
Somebody Somewhere2022
Same network, same interest in a woman starting over in middle age, but quieter and enormously tender.
But Much slower and more melancholy, with little interest in sex or comic set-pieces.
This Way Up2019
Aisling Bea's tangled, funny take on a woman's messy love life and family obligations, with sharp Irish-British humour throughout.
But Centres on sisters rather than parents, and the lead is a decade or two younger.
Divorce2016no page yet
Sarah Jessica Parker navigating midlife divorce and dating with the same HBO appetite for unglamorous honesty.
But Less acclaimed than it should be, and tonally uneven between comedy and drama.
Mum2016no page yet
Lesley Manville is quietly extraordinary as a widow whose grown son and his girlfriend simply won't leave — gentle, precise, devastatingly funny.
But Much gentler and slower, with almost no interest in sex or dating.
Volver2006no page yet
The same tangle of caregiving, family duty and female desire, but turned up to operatic pitch through Spanish melodrama instead of British deadpan.
Almodóvar's tragicomic tale of women managing dead husbands, ailing mothers and buried family secrets, full of tears, ghosts and enormous heart.
But Subtitled, heavier on melodrama and magical realism than sitcom, with grief sitting much closer to the surface.
The Mother2003no page yet
Nearly identical premise — an older woman's reawakened desire colliding with family duty — stripped of comedy to show how raw the same story can be.
Anne Reid plays a widow who begins an affair with a much younger man while her family quietly falls apart around her — devastating, unsentimental, superbly acted.
But Played entirely straight with no jokes, and considerably bleaker than anything Horgan would put her name to.
