Douglas Is Cancelled review: Halfway through Hugh Bonneville's new comedy-drama, you'll be ready to cancel Douglas yourself

Hugh Bonneville as Douglas and Karen Gillan as Madeline in the new Steven Moffat-penned comedy-drama Douglas Is Cancelled (Picture: Hartswood Films/ITV)

After initially seeming to be a diatribe against social media storms and cancel culture, the end of the second episode suddenly revealed a volte face that indicating we were going to be moving in a very different direction.

This four-part drama, written by Sherlock and Doctor Who show-runner Steven Moffat, centred on Douglas Bellowes (Hugh Bonneville), a presenter of an early evening news magazine show.

Having attended a family wedding, a tweet circulates alleging he made a sexist joke while in his cups, and the situation spirals rapidly downhill.

The cast of Douglas Is Cancelled. From left, Nick Muhammed, Ben Miles, Simon Russell Beale, Hugh Bonneville, Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston (Picture: Hartswood Films/ITV)

Part of the problem with Douglas Is Cancelled is that we – two episodes in, at least – haven't heard what the 'joke' is.

Douglas claims he can't remember what he said, and the tweet which kicks off the drama is never shown fully. However, Douglas reveals it was definitely sexist, but not misogynist; a narrow semantic distinction which doesn't him look less guilty.

It may be that Moffat is making the point that it doesn't matter what the 'joke' was, the mere fact that Douglas is alleged to have said it is the point – that such is the febrile atmosphere around 'woke' and 'taking offence' it is the reaction that matters, not the action.

But if we never see the offending remark, how are we really to judge if the reaction really is justified or not?

Alex Kingston stars as Sheila in the new comedy-drama Douglas Is Cancelled (Picture: Hartswood Films/ITV)

And the characters are so broadly written, such caricatures, that it's hard to care either way.

Douglas is merely slightly less self-aware version of Ian Fletcher, the bumbling bureaucrat played by Bonneville in the considerably more subtle W1A.

Douglas's editor Toby (Ben Miles), meanwhile, is simply objectionable. A man who is worried he might be seen as racist for mistaking Nick Muhammed's writer for his driver, when he should be more concerned that he's seen – correctly – as duplicitous, fake and underhand.

And for a journalist, he's incredibly cynical about his profession – something the vast majority of hacks, brought up on a diet of All The President's Men, Spotlight and, in many case Moffat's own Press Gang – are not.

“We're journalists, we're never there. Having opinions on things we didn't witness is the entire point of our existence,” he tells Douglas. “We are the brave few who turn up after the event and explain it to everyone else who missed it.”

Trying telling that to a war correspondent.

In fact, Moffat's view of journalists seems to have changed considerably since his Press Gang days.

Alex Kingston plays Sheila, Douglas's wife and a tabloid newspaper editor, apparently untroubled by exposing the private lives of others, and a brash, outspoken presence who has trouble with 'these young people nowadays'.

Moffat uses all of her two-dimensions to poke fun at workplace wokeness, but only succeeds in making her look rude and uncaring.

The Bellowes' daughter Claudia (Madeline Power), barely even makes it to two-dimensions. A teenage university student who twists everything her parents say into something to take offence at, she is another caricature, far removed from most actual teenagers, who wrestle with these issues like the rest of us.

And then comes the switcheroo, as Douglas's co-presenter Madeline (Karen Gillan) finally confronts the hapless host over the remark.

The trouble is that Madeline is scarcely sketched out as a character in the preceding two hours, beyond being dismissed as someone with glossy hair, and who seemingly gets irritated when a date – or a one-night stand, or a boyfriend, who knows really, given the tossed-off nature of the scene – hangs around her flat.

By the time it comes round, you're so infuriated by the broad-brush, Daily Mail-type potshots that you're all-too willing to cancel Douglas yourself.