Zomboat! A surprisingly clever and refreshingly upbeat zombie apocalypse – The Guardian

If youre craving a zombie series that ditches the cynicism and has some good old-fashioned fun with the idea, then allow me to introduce you to Zomboat!, a short, six-episode British comedy with a silly title but a surprisingly clever premise.

The series follows sisters Kat and Jo (Leah Brotherhead and Crazyheads Cara Theobold) after they wake up one Sunday to find Birmingham under attack by zombies. As a gamer nerd who knows her zombie lore, Kat already has a plan for this scenario steal a canal boat and escape to Eel Pie Island in London, because zombies cant swim. And, as Kat puts it, The Walking Dead would have been over in one season if Rick Grimes had gone to the Everglades.

After stealing said canal boat, the sisters find two stowaways in the bathroom: misanthropic Sunny (Hamza Jeetooa) and his sensitive gym bro buddy Amar (Ryan McKen), who are stranded in the city after a stag weekend. Though they clash at first, the group decides to team up for survival, leading to plenty of bickering, bonding and snogs. As a result, the series avoids falling into the same style-over-substance trap that spoiled other recent zombie comedies (like Netflixs Daybreak); instead, it benefits from the kind of found-family warmth that made Zombieland so charming.

Thats not to say there isnt action. If you think fleeing zombies on a tiny, slow-moving canal boat might create some unusual challenges, you would be right. For a start, there are 166 canal locks between Birmingham and London, the water can drain without warning and the toilet on the boat doesnt cope well with poo. Zomboat! doesnt keep its characters confined to the boat for long, allowing each episode to introduce a seemingly trivial problem that forces everyone back on land.

Comparisons with fellow British zom-com Shaun of the Dead are fair: Zomboat! creators Adam Miller and Will Hartley were heavily inspired by the films meta brand of humour. But while the set-up of their show isnt exactly original, its fun to watch this ragtag group quip their way through classic zombie movie scenarios such as a poorly guarded government evacuation centre because the stakes arent particularly high and their behaviour is unpredictable enough to keep you guessing.

They also never feel like genre stereotypes, just real people reacting absurdly to an absurd situation (which is all too believable these days). It would be easy to let Kat, as the most self-aware character, do nothing more than poke fun at zombie tropes, but Zomboat! subverts that clich by making reality fall short of her expectations. At first the solitary nerd relishes her chance to lead the group through a real apocalypse with her knowledge from movies and games, but it turns out leather pants chafe and zombie blood will ruin a perfectly good cup of tea.

In one especially entertaining episode, Jo is left covered in zombie goo and spends the whole runtime trying to find a hot shower, which is frankly the most relatable behaviour Ive ever seen in a zombie story. If lockdown has taught us anything, its that were desperate to hold onto our little comforts in the face of chaos.

Zomboat! might deal with the end of the world, but its a wacky, fantasy version of the apocalypse that I for one have sorely missed, especially now that The Walking Deads nihilistic approach has become expected in the genre. As harmless escapism goes, its the perfect three-hour binge.

Zomboat! is available to stream on Stan

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Zomboat! A surprisingly clever and refreshingly upbeat zombie apocalypse - The Guardian

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Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero
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