Euro Cult Movie Forum => British & European TV => Topic started by: Mark GW on 25 May 2012 - 14:55
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A comedy set during the night shift of a petrol station in Iceland might not be the most encouraging premise to get your your average punter tuning in, hence, the BBCs reason for screening it on BBC4 about a year ago as part of their Icelanic season. It's sort of a vague cross between The Office and Clerks and derives it's humour from the interplay between the three main characters, the awful pseudo-intellectual Stalinist manager, Georg, nervous medical student dropout, Daniel, and kind-hearted simpleton Olafur.
Comedies are often very much according to taste but this hits all the right notes with me being, poignant, dark, surreal and very very funny. It takes a few episodes to get used to the characters and their situation but is worth sticking with.
There are a couple of english friendly clips on YouTube:
Georg tells it like it is (Næturvaktin - The Night Shift - episode 10) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VewG0quEP3I#ws)
Nightshift trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZnsZeR6gD8#ws)
The series was followed up the series 'Dagvaktin (Day-Shift) (2008)' and 'Fangavaktin (Prison-Shift) (2009)' followed by the fearure film 'Bjarnfredarson (2009)' continuing the ongoing story featuring the same cast.
A new series, with the same actors and writers (minus Jon Gnarr who is now major of Rekjavik) Helmsendir (World's End) a black comedy/drama set in a Icelandic mental institution in the 90s has also recdently come out and is also highly recommended.
There are only Icelandic DVD releases of all these but they are all come with English subtitles.