Rewatching Man Like Mobeen

[Vodkafone]

Just binged the first two series of this again and it's so good. All the characters are brilliant - idiot Eight, Mobeen of course, trusting good boy Nathaniel, moody teen Aqsa and then of course uncle Shady - oh my god, uncle Shady. It probably helps that I live in an area that's very like Small Heath, so I find it extra relatable, but there are so many proper big laughs (Nathaniel at the school prom - "this is magical!"). It feels like the humour hasn't aged a day.

[jazzy_sabotage]

Mark Silcox is an absolute force of nature in it

The fourth series from earlier this year wasn't bad or anything yet I did think it was a bit of a dip from the third's heights. Guz kept saying it'd be the last one but the ending was such a bastard cliffhanger that there surely has to be another?

[lauraxsynthesis]

Yeah there will be a s5. I can't get enough of Shady's madness. And Aqsa is so adorable. Amazing pitch dark grim stuff among the humour of this show it really is an achievement. Guz is a treasure to be protected at all cost.

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/news/7558/man-like-mobeen-series-5/

[Vodkafone]

One of the things I like most about it are how it portrays people who are sometimes involved in terrible crimes as clueless, goofy knobheads. It's giving the, sometimes pathetic, humanity beneath the hard man bluff.

I also like how they feel they have licence to make jokes or comments on each other's race and ethnicity but it never lands, like Nate saying 'or in this case, euthanasian' and Mobeen and Eight just staring at him, or Eight saying to Michaela 'Are you from a different part of Africa to him [Nate], cos you look a bit different'.

[Russ L]

I truly love this.  MC Bromsgrove absolutely slayed me.

[FeederFan500]

This, along with People Who Just Do Nothing, was one of those shows I avoiding watching expecting it to be awful and wished I'd tried it earlier. Although having said that I haven't seen S4 yet. Eight's idiocy is great.

[Russ L]

Jumped through the air like a mad tiger bastard.

[jazzy_sabotage]

This, along with People Who Just Do Nothing, was one of those shows I avoiding watching expecting it to be awful and wished I'd tried it earlier. Although having said that I haven't seen S4 yet. Eight's idiocy is great.

Without wanting to spoil much, the dynamic of S4 seemed a bit different to me because of it largely being Mobeen and Nate in the slammer, with a bunch of new colourful inmate characters and some familiar faces popping up. Still a great watch but I do think some of the relatability of the previous series based around Mobes' loveable family of odds and sods and Aqsa livin it big in Small Heath was lost

[AllisonSays]

I like this up to a point but found some of it a bit didactic or sententious. The episode where he got locked in the police van with the BNP guy in particular felt like something you'd be shown in school as part of an anti-racism campaign. The argument with the posh dickhead in the A&E was also a wee bit on the nose. 

But I agree it feels like a lived in world and the supporting cast are often very funny.