Nathan Barley

Julian Barrett as Dan Ashcroft in Charlie Brookner's Nathan Barley

The 2005 UK miniseries “Nathan Barley” features an ensemble cast of top British comedians and actors and satirizes what seems to be a thinly disguised Vice magazine or equivalent (here it’s “SugarApe,” sometimes written SugaRape) and hipsters in general. The show is named for the bombastic Nathan Barley, creator of the website trashbat.co.ck. (“It’s trash, that is all around us… and then bat.”) Nathan Barley stars Julian Barrett and Noel Fielding (of The Mighty Boosh), Richard Ayoade, Claire Keelan, Ben Whishaw in one of his first roles, Benedict Cumberbatch before he got really famous and others. I’m not a fan of cringe comedy generally but Julian Barrett saves the show with his performance of understated, nearly fatal disgust.

Believe.

Episodes two, three, four, five, six.

Nathan Barley, tshirt as pants

SugarApe office interiors:

chill out zone

Screen Shot 2013-02-16 at 1.22.43 PM

Nathan Barley - office, toy bike

1 comment

  1. Just watched this again – interesting to see a Hitler salute by Nathan Barley in there in the first episode. Loved Dan’s response to it, and Barley’s idiot explanation of it. Prescient, given where elements of the hipster thing went later.

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