Curb Your Enthusiasm

For those who haven't seen it, Curb Your Enthusiasm is an HBO TV
series from the co-creator of Seinfeld, Larry David. The series in fact centres
around Larry David, or at least a warped semi biographical version of Larry
David. This is one of the features that seperates Curb Your enthusiasm from
other sitcoms. It is set in a bizarre world between real life and some surreal
comic twilight zone in which Larry David (the character) finds himself
surrounded with other real life people, such as Larry's friend the comedian
Richard Lewis, sending themselves up. Inside the series, Larry spends his days
between his wife Cheryl and his manager Jeff. In amongst his lazy lifestyle, he
systematically manages to horrifically offend almost everyone he meets and then
proceeds to make the situation far worse as the episode progresses.
It's a fairly simple format which is also brilliantly effective. Much of the
shows charm comes from its naturalistic style, a feature emphasised by its
entirely unscripted dialogue. David simply sets up the scenes and lets himself
and the other actors do the rest from take to take. This works so strongly to
the show's advantage, simply because of the all round strength of the cast's
performances. Cheryl Hines' performance in particular is so realistic, she is
often mistaken for Larry David's real wife. Curb your Enthusiasm is a
brilliantly witty show that revels in the lack of restrictions licenced by HBO,
often tackling extremely taboo subjects that other sitcoms wouldn\'t dare. For
instance, there are two episodes in the first two series centred around the word
c***. This is by no means a family show like Friends, but if you have a fairly
dark sense of humour and like your comedy a little more cerebral, then you are
guaranteed to love it.