Alice and Steve review — dated, uncomfortable comedy fails to convince

Alice and Steve follows two university friends of more than 30 years. Alice (Nicola Walker) is on her second marriage, to Daniel (Joel Fry), ten years her junior; they have a teenage son and have raised her daughter Izzy (Yali Topol Margalith), who at 26 returns home after a breakup.

Steve (Jemaine Clement) is a hairstylist, single since his wife left him four years ago. After a funeral he tells Alice, “I wish I was in love and had a baby,” and she urges him to find a younger woman who can give him both. Ten minutes later he is on Alice’s sofa with Izzy, a woman he has known since she was born; the show treats this as acceptable because Izzy is a confident 26-year-old who came on to him.

Creator Sophie Goodhart spends the six half-hours running away from that premise’s ick rather than interrogating it. The series insists Steve is not a predator but merely weak and lonely, and it prefers a shrugging “What’s a fella to do?!” tone instead of probing the power differentials at play — an approach that feels dated and wrong.

alice, steve, nicola walker, jemaine clement, joel fry, sophie goodhart, izzy, age gap, power differentials, dated comedy