Summary
This miniseries is a British office drama that offers a nuanced look at English public employment, the target of adjustment policies, without limiting itself to defending or attacking it, or painting private activity as its opposite and panacea. The same can be said about the immigration policies he outlines. And it offers that ability to go from sharp British verbal humor to drama, discomfort and even misery nonstop, hand in hand with a group of endearing, contradictory or toxic characters led by Zawe Ashton, a kind of brunette Jennifer Aniston.
Review
Katherine (Zawe Ashton) is a burgeoning manager of a newly divorced London public immigration policy office who is transferred to an obscure Northampton borough whose continuity is hanging by a thread.
This miniseries is an office drama that could be seen as the other side of Industry, with well-delineated characters. In this case, the public department (also in charge of immigration policies) is adrift, directed on automatic pilot by a drug-abused subject named Daniel (Sacha Dhawan), who is joined by a gallery of broken or devastated characters, in some toxic or naive cases, including a hiring manager, Jeffries (an excellent Anastasia Hille), Daniel's tremendous assistant and friend, Angela (notably Jo Hartley), two rather silly and endearing employees, and a former love interest of Katherine. Added to her personal dramas is the ghost of the dismissal hovering over her heads.
Not Safe for Work offers a nuanced look at British public employment, not limited to defending or attaking it, but as a target of adjustment policies, with the anguish of losing one's job as a permanent backdrop. Nor does it portray private activity as its opposite and panacea and offers the same broad, non-schematic view of immigration policies that it outlines.
The series works very well with its British verbal humor that quickly turns to depression, discomfort and the sufferings of its characters (or with the combination of all this), transits the romantic comedy, although it may not be as effective on the plane of physical humor (fortunately little). The dialogues, in all cases and climates, look welcome conciseness.
Beyond its choral elements, the axis of the series is Katherine, a quite damaged character, rich in contradictions, lights and shadows who is carried forward with charisma by a Zawe Ashton who is a kind of brunette version of Jennifer Aniston.
