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Review

A wildly creative and hysterically funny award-winning BBC series, Shameless follows a large Manchester family - along with their friends and neighbors - living in a fictional tenement called Chatsworth Estate.

Patriarch Frank Gallagher (the brilliantly funny David Threlfall), a Bukowski-inspired anarchist, could easily contend for "worst father in sitcom history." He drinks on a constant basis and - since his wife left him long ago for another woman - relies on his six children for financial and organizational support.

The family is run by Fiona, the responsible eldest sister, and her irresistibly debonair boyfriend Steve (real-life husband and wife Anne-Marie Duff & James McAvoy). Along with the rest of the Gallagher clan, Fiona and Steve must contend with the outrageous daily happenings that effect every contemporary lower-middle class family - domestic violence, wild sexual encounters, intergenerational romance, adultery, fraud, thievery, kidnapping, arson...you know, the usual.

While Shameless offers something for almost every viewer to enjoy, particular attention is paid to gay and lesbian audiences. During the first episode, it is revealed that middle-child Ian (the adorable Gerard Kearns) is having an affair with a much older married man (Indian hottie Chris Bisson of Chicken Tikka Masala). And Monica Gallagher (Annabelle Apsion) - mother to the young protagonists - and her lesbian lover Norma (Dystin Johnson) turn up from time to time to wreak emotional havoc. The entire male half of the cast is exceptionally attractive - with the exception of David Threlfall who is made to look like Ozzy Osbourne on a bad day. Also, though his character is straight, there is plenty of half-naked James McAvoy to go around (the image of him completely naked with only a bushel of roses covering his little Scottish soldier left me pretty weak in the knees).

We have a strong feeling that this completely addictive, critically acclaimed series will be a big hit with our customers. Plus, if enough of us start watching it, maybe they’ll finally release the second season in the US.

 -- Robert O'Neill

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