Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (All 4/Channel 4) looks like Sesame Street and plays like David Lynch. It is the gently, gradually but relentlessly nightmarish vision of Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling, who met as fine arts students at university and, when stuck in post-grad jobs they hated, teamed up with actor/writer Baker Terry and put their artistic skills to use creating a DIY web series that, between 2011 and 2016, became a crowdfunded hit. The six episodes – lasting a few minutes each – took the happy learning vibe of children’s television and twisted it into something so creepy you could feel it moving under your skin long after the cheery voices had faded into nothingness. A paean to creativity rapidly descends into an offal-stuffed nightmare. The monstrous nature of time stands revealed by a singing, dancing and eventually screaming clock. And so, horribly, brilliantly on.
Comments