Life doesn’t always go as planned, especially when you want to be a writer, and Sarah Porter has learned that one the hard way. Like a lot of millennials, she’s had to move home after chasing a dream that didn’t quite work out the way she hoped it would. Some sobering time in the big city can make one long for the comforts of home and family; after all, London can chew you up and spit you out if you let it. So Sarah heads back to her hometown to live with her mum and nan, who run a cafe in Weston-super-Mare, a sleepy coastal town near Bristol, in England, just across the Bristol Channel from Cardiff. I checked, it’s not that close to Torquay, so you might not be able to grab a coffee at the cafe and then pop over to Fawlty Towers for the night. I was raised on British comedies (and The Golden Girls and The A-Team), so I’m always on the lookout for them and while I’ve watched many that have been fine, I eventually came across one that I wanted to share with you.
It took me a little bit to connect with The Cafe, as you do really see Weston through the eyes of Sarah, played by Michelle Terry, who also wrote the series about her real life hometown. You’d probably imagine that she’s not too happy to be back in Weston and you’d be right. Disappointment always takes time to bounce back from, so I get it. But she does mope around a bit as she comes to terms with her new reality. Now, I haven’t lived in London and I definitely haven’t lived in Weston-super-Mare, but I’ve lived in big cities and small towns and coming back to a small town after the city is quite a culture shock. All of a sudden, your whole world narrows, your choices are limited, and everything feels so different. But small towns can have their charms, especially on TV (you know me, I’m a city boy through and through; when told to touch grass, I have to take an Uber to the closest grass zone, which is what I think normal people call them).
Sarah’s mom Carol runs Cyril’s, a struggling cafe that represents the dreams of her dead husband, right on the boardwalk by the shore. It’s an idyllic spot. Every time the opening credits crawl over the wide shot bringing us into the cafe, despite the theme song being a version of “Beyond the Sea”, which is a song I’ve always found funereal and have, as a result, never liked, I can’t help but think it seems like a hell of a nice place to visit. Carol, played by Ellie Haddington (Enola Holmes), is both happy to have her daughter back and concerned about her future, often pushing her to settle down. She’s also in an incredibly Victorian-feeling will they/won’t they with Stan, the local florist. The series is contemporary to the time it was made, which is 2011, but you wouldn’t really know it to look at it. I mean, the struggling cafe owner in a very Westley and Buttercup relationship with the local florist, who brings her clippings everyday so she’ll have fresh flowers? Most of the time, that kind of thing feels saccharine and would make my stomach turn, but here it’s just so…Luke’s in reverse without the gruffness.
It’s a sleepy town, with not a lot going on, an aging populace, and modernity far away, Weston feels like it came out of a time capsule. Much like other colorful small towns, though, it’s really the residents who give it the bulk of its charm. And this little borough has its fair share of Stars Hollow-like folks who call Weston their home. Don’t get me wrong though, there’s still not much exciting going on. The major conflict in one of the episodes is about whether, when having a cream tea, a traditional English afternoon snack, you should put the clotted cream on the scone first or if the jam should go on first. Now, it’s fair to say that will sound completely foreign to most Americans, but if you contextualize it as milk before cereal or cereal before milk, it’s completely relatable. We all get needlessly pedantic about kind of meaningless things all the time, it’s part of the human condition
Also, it’s cereal before milk, obviously.
Then you have Carol’s mom; Nan to Sarah, Mary Ellis to everyone else. Mary Ellis, played by June Watson (The Death of Stalin), mostly just knits, but she also nitpicks. It’s really interesting to see these three generations of women all together, each generation looking at its successor and predecessors, trying to learn, trying to teach, and sometimes, well, more often than not, being a little too judgmental. But there’s wisdom and caring too, which is why I suppose people put up with family. Mary Ellis’s friends come in for tea and scones and arguments with Mary Ellis of course. Then there’s also Richard, who comes by everyday for his regular cuppa. Sweet, kind Richard, played by Ralf Little (Death in Paradise), who is also a writer on the series, has had a crush on Sarah his entire life and that hasn’t changed, and while they were some sort of item when they were younger, he doesn’t seem to have shaken those feelings, but in a very innocent kind of way. He’s such a good dude, though; always on the cusp of finally getting a car, he’s a man of endless patience. He works at the nursing home in town and seems to care genuinely about the people who live there.
Sarah’s childhood best friend Chloe is still in Weston too: a bit ditzy, quite a bit more outgoing than Sarah, and a true free spirit. Chloe, played by the incredible Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, the best part about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), is always a bubbly presence on screen and brings a lot of the show’s laughs. She also happens to be Stan’s daughter. Kieran, the living statue is always coming by in his newest ludicrous getup, spanning from Hellboy to Homer Simpson. And who can forget Frank? I admit, I don’t really know Frank’s whole deal. But he generally seems to hang around outside the cafe and ask for leftovers too early in the day. I don’t know if he’s unhoused or just unable to find a job, but to see him at the cafe everyday, being treated with dignity and kindness make his little cameos endlessly pleasant and often quite touching.
But even a show as cozy as this has conflict. Of course, there are Carol’s past due bills and the ever forward march of progress that threatens the cafe’s continued existence. Oh yes, that old dance, the ever-present bugbear we call progress. It’s not progress that’s the problem, of course. Progress has given us so much. It gave us the Internet. Okay, bad example, that one’s a pretty mixed bag. It all depends on who’s steering the ship, doesn’t it? Sometimes progress is just change for the sake of change, so someone looks busy while they collect a check. Sometimes it’s nefarious, involving someone collecting more than a check. Sometimes, it’s good, though, which is why all have to keep progressing, annoyingly enough. But the real black hat here, at least depending on your perspective, is John, played by Daniel Ings (who will be in the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel).
John grew up in Weston and has long since moved to London. He’s gotten in shape, he has a good job and a Porsche, and he’s back in Weston to deal with the affairs of his ailing mother, whom he hasn’t seen in years. And boy, do you just hate John the second you see him. John is perfectly crafted to be disliked from the very first frame. Driving his Boxster down the motorway, talking on a Bluetooth headset, with so many shirt buttons undone as to render them mere suggestions, and an attitude that says “I’m too good to be here”, he’s immediately at odds with everything his hometown is and represents. I mean, his ringtone is the James Bond theme song. Even in 2011, that was douchey. And I should know, my ringtone used to be fairly off-putting to people. John butts heads with Richard, who has been his mother’s caretaker at the nursing home, for several reasons. Richard seems to resent that John hasn’t had contact with his mother for several years as she’s staring down the barrel of dementia and her memories losing a battle with time, but they’ve had beef that goes back to childhood. This particular Wellington, of course, has everything to do with Sarah. John fancied Sarah when they were younger, which upset Richard quite a bit and apparently in the way that you hang on to. But I suppose even Richard is allowed his sharp edges here and there, I sure know I have them. So you hold on to that grudge, Richard. Sparks don’t exactly fly between John and Sarah, but there is a connection and jealousy rears its head again. Not that romance is the main focus of the series, but it’s always nice to have a love triangle to get invested in (like in Star Wars, with the gold robot guy, the little trash can, and the old guy who lived in desert).
Also, of course progress is the real black hat. At least this kind of progress.
Despite all this small town quirkiness, the problems all seem very relatable. Sarah is trying to figure out what to do next. So is Carol, whether she wants to admit it or not. Sarah may not have realized it yet, but it will eventually dawn on her; just because you “grow up” doesn’t mean you have all the answers, it only seems that way when you’re a kid. Carol is just like any one of us; she has to weigh her options, think of the pros and cons, make a decision, and, crucially and cruelly, she has to live with them. So do I. So do you. So does Sarah. So does John. John, for whatever reason, isn’t very close with his mother, but now she’s dying and in one of the worst ways possible; by losing herself slowly, a little more each day. And he’s trying to cope with that and do right by her at the same time, splitting his life in two, between Weston and London. He’s got a journey ahead of him. And while I only watched the first season, I get the feeling it’s going to be a satisfying one. Our cast of characters live in a postcard, a picturesque utopia where nothing goes quite right and it feels like one big wave, from the ocean or otherwise, could come crashing down at any moment and wash it all away. They call this a comedy, but it’s not. Not just a comedy, anyway. Sure, it’s funny, often more smirk funny than laugh out loud, but it’s not the comedy that’s the star of this show. No, not at all. It’s the connections the residents of Weston make with each other, their quiet struggles, their refusal to not be there for each other when they need it, those are the things that stand out to me. I do always say the best comedies are a bit sad because comedy often comes from a place of sadness (The Bear, Fleabag, Lodge 49, the list goes on) and there’s definitely enough sadness to go around in Weston-super-Mare. But there’s more than that too.
The Cafe rarely has me rolling on the floor in fits of uncontrollable laughter, but through the first six episode season, I admit to having to wipe a tear more than once. But the good kind. The kind that lets you know that even though you definitely spent too much time scrolling Twitter and getting mired in the helplessness of the world, there’s still some life left in that chest cavity and it’s not gone completely frozen over just yet. It paints an unbelievably cozy picture that leaves my heart full and hopeful. In a time when it seems like everyone is hurting, seeing these characters look out for each other and care for each other is really nice, like a warm blanket with a British accent. After all, it’s not where you are that matters nearly as much as the people you surround yourself with. Because you never know what people are going through and it never hurts to help lighten their load if you can. Apparently, sometimes it takes a small seaside town on the Bristol Channel to help you feel like things might get better out there. The Cafe is streaming on Peacock and BritBox and it ran for two seasons.
Also, there aren’t that many high res photos out there for to share with you, so apropos of nothing, here’s Jeff the Land Shark looking cute as heck.
