With distinctly British humor, 'Can You Keep a Secret?' makes light of insurance fraud

In 2002, a erstwhile mathematics and subject teacher and situation defender named John Darwin paddled a kayak into the North Sea from his location successful Seaton Carew, England, and disappeared. Subsequently helium was declared dead, and his wife, Anne, received a beingness security payout of £250,000. As it happened, helium was precise overmuch live and surviving secretly astatine location and successful a neighboring house, erstwhile not traveling overseas nether a mendacious passport — a information hidden adjacent from the couple’s 2 sons. The communicative has been doubly dramatized (“Canoe Man” successful 2010, with Bernard Hill and Saskia Reeves, and “The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe,” with Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan, successful 2022 — “canoe” is seemingly what the British telephone a kayak) and has present provided the inspiration for a wicked comedy, “Can You Keep a Secret?,” premiering Thursday connected Paramount+.

Created and written by Simon Mayhew-Archer (“Our Country,” which became the ground for the American “Welcome to Flatch”), “Secret” takes the basics of the Darwin communicative and whips them into thing little sociopathic. As we begin, Harry Fendon (Craig Roberts), nervous, depressed, has travel to sojourn his mother, Debbie (Dawn French); helium is nether the content that his father, William (Mark Heap), had died 2 months earlier. Debbie tells him that the beingness security wealth has travel done and hands him £10,000 from a container packed with bills, depressing him further. “We’re reducing my dada to a container of cash,” says Harry. “Well, I was impressed by however overmuch we got for him,” says Debbie. And, hoping to cheer up her son, she produces William from the pantry.

As recounted successful flashback, Debbie had discovered William, who has Parkinson’s disease, not breathing and unresponsive. Before helium popped backmost to beingness — helium had accidentally overdosed connected his Parkinson’s medication, from a operation of forgetfulness and mediocre reasoning — helium had been declared dormant by a neurotic doc successful hazmat gear. (There’s a crushed — goofy, but a reason.) An inattentive mortician, nether the content that a antithetic corpse is William, inadvertently provides a body; mentioning insurance, helium plants an thought successful Debbie’s caput — that it mightiness beryllium profitable, which is not accidental practical, to permission William deceased successful the eyes of the world. “Who are we to reason with the NHS?” she asks. To William, who seldom goes retired anyhow and is thing of a cipher successful the community, she notes, “The fantastic happening astir you is that you mightiness arsenic good person been dormant for the past 30 years.”

Things volition get much complicated, of course. Harry volition fret implicit whether to archer his wife, Neha (Mandip Gill), a constabulary officer, that his begetter is alive. (Debbie is against it, for Neha’s sake.) William, who is addicted to sugar, volition sneak retired successful hunt of the snacks Debbie denies him. And they’ll larn that their concealed is not wholly unafraid erstwhile blackmail notes statesman to get — astatine which constituent the bid becomes a mystery.

Neha (Mandip Gill), left, Debbie’s (Dawn French) daughter-in-law, is successful the acheronian astir William.

(Alistair Heap/Big Talk Studios/BBC/Paramount+)

The wit tin beryllium debased (not a criticism); pop-cultural references, of which determination are many, whitethorn not needfully marque consciousness to an American viewer. There isn’t overmuch successful the mode of jokes, successful the setup and punchline sense, but genuinely comic things are happening each the time. Each quality seems to recognize the others dimly, arsenic done a connection barrier; each vibrates astatine their ain frequency. Conversations are built connected disagreement; distractable brains flit from 1 thought to a hardly related other. Arguing implicit the sanction of a large bid robber, successful the midst of much superior business, Debbie and William descent into what amounts to an Abbott and Costello routine. They volition spell successful circles implicit what time the trash bins spell out, and what time it is astatine the moment.

British wit has its ain flavor, naturally, calved from that nation’s peculiar history, culture, class, weather, cuisine (if you tin telephone it that, ha ha), and it’s 1 of which I’ve been enamored with, astatine slightest since Monty Python albums archetypal fell into my hands. Generally speaking, it’s much angular, much acid, much morbid, much consenting to fto a protagonist stew successful misery, much suspicious of sentiment than our comparatively genial homegrown brand. (Yes, determination are exceptions.) You tin measurement it successful the temperamental quality betwixt the archetypal “Ghosts” and the CBS remake, oregon successful the British and American versions of “The Office,” oregon of “Doc Martin” and its caller translation present arsenic “Best Medicine.” (Even the caller rubric tells you thing astir that difference.) “The Black Adder,” “Black Books,” “Brass Eye,” each of Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge series, “Human Remains” (Rob Brydon and Julia Davis arsenic antithetic unhappy couples), David Mitchell’s “Upstart Crow” and “Ludwig” — I database these bid by mode of proposal and arsenic a hullo to immoderate chap fans speechmaking this.

Though helium doesn’t spell successful for mush, Mayhew-Archer does astatine slightest supply a benignant of rationale for the fraud: aesculapian security declined to screen William’s Parkinson’s drugs. “We paid our taxes, we paid our bills,” says Debbie. “We haven’t been arrested … much.” They are “simply taking backmost what we paid in.” (“Plus a small spot more,” Harry points out.) The Fendons are not surviving large, and Debbie’s instincts are fundamentally charitable. And determination are immoderate incidentally poignant scenes surrounding William’s condition, though — Mayhew-Archer’s father, Paul Mayhew-Archer, who co-wrote French’s fashionable sitcom “The Vicar of Dibley,” has lived with Parkinson’s for 15 years (and does stand-up astir it).

The 4 main characters are perfectly balanced, but supra all, it’s the players who marque the magic. Roberts (seen here, playing American, successful “Red Oaks” and arsenic an agoraphobic insomniac writer successful the beauteous import “Still Up”), is the bundle of nerves done which the others intersect. As the comparatively sensible one, Gill, a changeless companion to Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, arsenic successful “Who,” is fantastic being astounded oregon upright. And Heap, who played Noel Fielding’s begetter successful past year’s “The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin,” is softly hilarious arsenic a tall, muddled aged man-child, pranking his lad by pretending to beryllium dormant (again), munching connected nutrient he’s recovered portion hiding successful the pantry (“Bacon puff, anyone? … They’re pre-9/11, but inactive up to snuff”) and playing a fictional German relation, successful Lederhosen and a fake mustache, successful bid to spot his grandchildren.

French, astir apt champion known present from PBS showings of “The Vicar of Dibley” and little astir apt from her treble enactment with Jennifer Saunders (of “Absolutely Fabulous” fame), is the motor pulling this train, and, successful a not unaffectionate way, pushing her household around, assured successful her impulses — they don’t rather magnitude to decisions — and definite that she knows champion for everyone. “You’re a moron,” Debbie tells William, “but you’re my moron.” That’s love.