Flowers season two, Channel 4

'Major depressive disorder'

'Just call it depression Noris, it's not a Nobel Prize.'

The return of the cultish black comedy Flowers boasts, as everyone likes to point out, genuinely original and unique writing. Will Sharpe's dark, heartfelt and troublingly honest comedy sees well-meaning Deborah (Olivia Colman) and her depressive husband, the child author Maurice (Julian Barratt), back on the small screen after a two year hiatus.



They return with their two maladjusted twin children now in their late twenties, Amy and Donald, and a motley crew of dysfunctional family members, to explore the impact of bipolar disorder on a family.

We rejoin the Flowers a few years after the first series. Maurice, who introduced the first episode by failing to hang himself with a rope before the opening credits had finished rolling, seems to be coming out the other side of the darkness thanks to a bucket load of pills. Deborah, too, seems to be doing well – she's just published a self-help book about her experience living with Maurice's depression called Living with the Devil. 'Did it not occur to you how this might come across to people?' Maurice thunders.

The first series was not just surreal and dangerously dark, but a masterclass in acting from Olivia Colman. The second season promises the return of painful, truthful dark humour – and a lesson in how it's never to late to turn your life around.

Flowers returns to Channel 4 on Monday 11th June at 10pm