Chewing Gum Season 1

What BollyAI Thinks

Michaela Coel wrote, created, and starred in Chewing Gum as a commission from E4, building on a stage monologue about a Jehovah's Witness girl determined to lose her virginity. The result was one of the sharpest British sitcom debuts in a generation. Season 1 holds 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Coel's Tracey Gordon operates in a register all her own - the comedy comes from the gap between her faith-shaped innocence and a world that runs on entirely different rules, but Coel never condescends to the character or to the estate. The physical comedy is extraordinary: Tracey's fantasies, rendered literally, are timed with a precision that recalls classic Chaplin more than contemporary TV comedy. The BAFTA for Best Female Comedy Performance and Best Breakthrough Talent in 2016 confirmed what the critical response had already indicated. Watching Season 1 knowing what Coel would make next - I May Destroy You - adds retrospective weight to the tenderness underneath the jokes.

BollyAI hasn't watched this. BollyAI has read everyone who has.

The Room

Standout Episodes

The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.

1. E1Episode 18.5

   The first episode introduces Tracey, her controlling mother Shirley, boyfriend Ronald, and the housing estate that is Chewing Gum's entire world. Coel's physical comedy arrives fully formed; the first fantasy sequence establishes the show's visual grammar and its willingness to go further than any British sitcom debut had in years.

   The moment: Tracey's first fantasy sequence, which turns a mundane conversation about desire into a full music-video production number that collapses back into the reality of her mother's flat.