Rose Matafeo is a national treasure
Matafeo doesn’t shy away from the soul-crushing fight to exist in a world where you are barely anchored with a deft balance of humour, sorrow, joy and frustration, in her pitch perfect, romantic comedy Starstruck.
The amount of TV I have watched over the last year should be criminal and I’m not alone. Ofcom’s annual study into UK media habits suggested adults spent an average of 40% of their waking hours in front of a screen in 2020. At the height of lockdown, adults spent almost 6 and a half hours a day watching TV. That’s 45 hours per week, beating the 40-hour work week.
There has been nostalgia, gut punches, regretful choices, outstanding soundtracks and the magic of falling in love for the first time, with characters that lift off the screen and into your reality. Baby is no longer pronounced as such but rather bébé a la Moira Rose <3.
In the year where I have gone nowhere, I have travelled as far as I can go through the four corners of my TV. Full disclaimer - I have a penchant for things set in London, the New Zealand accent abroad and Rose Matafeo who single-handedly vindicated my misuse of the word ‘horndog’ in my high school Hotmail address in titling her Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning stand-up show, *release the doves*, Horndog. But it is her pitch perfect, romantic comedy Starstruck that made me long for a London that lays dormant, that exists in the peripheral vision of my memory.
By Ofcom’s study, watching Starstruck is all in a day’s work and feels anything but. With six episodes averaging at 22 minutes each, it is my type on paper.
Co-created by Rose Matafeo and Alice Snedden, Starstruck follows 28-year-old Jessie, played by Rose Matafeo who unintentionally sleeps with movie star Tom played by Nikesh Patel on the most romantic night of the year, New Year’s Eve. Shout out to all those September Libras. What transpires is the beauty and brutality of a city, how friends quietly become family and validates how dating in your late twenties feels like everything and nothing is happening, where you’re not only trying to work out who it is you’re sleeping with but who you are in the process.
Starstruck is both refreshing and reflective. With our romantic leads Jessie and Tom being people of colour and it not being this point of contention or interest but rather simply existing, is something I never grew up with. It reminded me of Dan Levy’s handling of David Rose’s sexuality in Schitt’s Creek, where it existed without an overriding explanation. The nonchalance manner traditionally reserved for white heterosexual storytelling when attributed to different ethnicities and sexualities effectively expands the 21st-century zeitgeist of modern love. And can we applaud writers who give more to characters who are traditionally exaggerated into tired and offensive stereotypes, who exist only to support white, heterosexual leads? It’s naturalisation through simply existing, which Matafeo and Snedden capture throughout the series.
Making light of big things and celebrating little things. From sex on periods, men treating themselves to a sit-down pee to complicated, dead-end sexual partners who are only complicated because you keep going back. Your late twenties are so strange, even more so in London where the expected timeline to grow up wobbles a bit. Matafeo holds a mirror to what could be described as the last call of your twenties.
Where your head tries to safeguard yourself from the rollercoaster you can’t stop riding. When Jessie speaks frankly about existing in London it’s hard to not recall your own experiences when living overseas. One morning in my first year here, I remember telling my manager I was at the doctor’s because I couldn’t afford my train fare until my overdraft was approved. Life outside the comforts of home is expensive especially when you’re trying to keep up and keep your creeping breakdowns quiet. Matafeo doesn’t shy away from the soul-crushing fight to exist in a world where you are barely anchored with a deft balance of humour, sorrow, joy and frustration.
I cannot wait for season 2 and returning to the carefully crafted and realistic characters that made me miss my own fading London experience. From overbearing and lovable Kate to her sweet, bumbling love interest who yells out for espresso martinis in the first episode. There is a man in every bar who will do this and it is only welcome the week before payday. It also has a killer soundtrack, which never hurts and a scene that should replace Mark Morrison’s Return of the Mack official video. If you liked Girls and Fleabag, I implore you to watch Starstruck. Rose Matafeo is a national treasure, plus, it’s only 30ish% of our daily lockdown average viewing so really, you’ve got nothing to lose.
Words — Sonya Prior
Image — via New Statesman
