Ricky Gervais is truly one of the most talented comedy writers ever. On top of being an incredibly skilled stand-up comedian, Gervais has given the world some of the best-rated and most iconic comedy shows of all-time, including After Life, Derek, Extras, and most famously, The Office.
What makes these projects so popular and well-received is a combination of their excellent writing and unapologetic humour, but also their brief nature. Each of Gervais' shows tend to have short six episode seasons with episodes lasting 20-30 minutes. It all means there's an entire lack of bloat, a complete focus on quality over quantity, and you end up treasuring these projects when they arrive because there is such a limited array of them. This is once again the case with the Netflix animated comedy series, Alley Cats.
What we have here is a six-episode first season, spanning around 15 minutes per entry, where we follow a gang of foul-mouthed and rude stray cats as they go about their business in a British city. There's an element of camaraderie between the gang, but the structure of Alley Cats is also fundamentally built to revolve around daft, almost podcast-like conversations where the group banter about meaningless mumbo-jumbo and tease each other at every turn too.
Whether it's bees, climate change, religion, or even cat genitalia, there are constant random and silly conversations where the group of well-written and defined characters offer hilarious caricatures and performances. But unlike the way this is often presented in Americanised animated comedy series, the humour here is unapologetically British, which means it's incredibly crude, often pokes fun at stereotypes, it's chock-full of slang and local nods, and never once worries about the consequences of what it says or does.
And this works, not just because it's rip-roaringly hilarious, but because there are the typical Gervais elements that look to explore core emotions too. After Life, for example, is a pretty dark and miserable story on the surface but underneath there's so much passion and charisma that bubbles through. The same applies to Alley Cats, as each episode will make you burst out laughing time and again, all while also taking moments to be introspective when the topic shifts to death, relationships, abandonment, maturing, and so forth. It's designed to be a bit of a roller coaster of emotions, one where there are honest and often sad lows but also outrageously funny highs.
Essentially, while it may be over in a flash, Alley Cats is a real treat you will appreciate and treasure every single moment that you share with it. There's something about the way it's written and structured, there's something about this cast of stars Gervais so frequently leans on and how they bounce off one another, there's something so delightful about the more simplistic animation technique and how it portrays these cats in such a humanoid nature. It's a really, really wonderful marriage of different elements, and you could almost regard it as the end-product if you merged The Office's daft humour and the animalistic and charming premise of Creature Comforts.
So yes, it's very short, so short in fact you are immediately left with a desire to spend more time with this hilarious cast of felines. But again, that's one of Alley Cats' best strengths, as it doesn't waste your time and isn't defined by padded out nonsense. It's wonderfully paced, consistently charming, and it's perhaps the funniest series I have seen all year. This is another marvel from Gervais you shouldn't miss.
