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  • Charlotte Stokes

Why you need to watch BBC's 'The Outlaws'

Updated: Feb 9, 2022

The dark comedy, written by and starring Stephen Merchant, forces six strangers into a community service team, all with different lives and backgrounds.


As the show was filmed after the last lockdown, it incorporates familiar humour around what we have been accustomed to over the last nearly two years during the pandemic.


You might not want to join your friends on a night out since returning to university, and this series is perfect for lying in bed and escaping your workload and to-do list.


At the beginning of each episode, there is a reveal of how another member broke the law, usually in a funny and witty way due to their underlying good personalities with flaws on the outside.


The group includes a left-wing militant fighting for black rights, a right-wing businessman, a social media influencer, a studious girl with a scholarship to Oxford, an old crook returning from prison, a bad boy, and a ‘hard to categorise’ lawyer, played by Merchant himself.


These characters each bring the funny one-liners needed to turn this dark comedy into a real life understanding of the different corners of society. They quickly come to realise that when they are brought together, although chaotic at first, they can help each other out.


After a bag of money is found and no one is there to claim it, the three most dissimilar characters join forces to save themselves from their failing businesses, community troubles and start afresh. Not without debating their moral compasses first, of course.


This six-part series not only deals with the humorous side of the turmoil when a privileged social media star gets thrown into cleaning a wrecked building with regular people – but also the frailty of human emotions and the external pressures that led them to this point. It provides an extremely insightful outlook on regular people, like you and I, in society.


This Bristol set will change your perspective on the troubled areas of your own community, along with creasing in half when the two political minefields go head-to-head in a quick witted bicker every time they turn up for community service.


It is definitely a must watch if you haven't seen it already.


Edited by Hannah Youds

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