Catastrophe: a show proving comfort can be found in watching people fall apart together

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan’s dark comedy begins with an unplanned pregnancy and ends as a story about managing the worst with those you love

Sometimes it seems like every TV show is obsessed with pain. Walter White got cancer, then descended into a criminal underworld. Game of Thrones was a weekly bloodsport. Meredith Grey has survived so much that there are listicles chronicling her trauma.

Catastrophe is a much rarer show. It’s less interested in pain itself than the characters’ ability to matter-of-factly (and hilariously) carry on in spite of it.

“A terrible thing has happened,” says Rob, an American who has just got a woman pregnant after a brief hookup in London. “Let’s just make the best of it.”

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An unplanned pregnancy is obviously not Game of Thrones “your father has been decapitated by a tyrannical boy king” level bad, but it does completely upend the characters’ lives. Rob Norris (Rob Delaney) and Sharon Morris (Sharon Horgan) decide to go ahead with the pregnancy, which turns into a marriage, which turns into a life together – which comes with its own problems.

Catastrophe is a dark comedy about how quickly life can change, and the pain and pleasure that coexist when it does.

Rob and Sharon deal with addiction, infidelity and death with equal parts patience and love and resilience.
Rob and Sharon deal with addiction, infidelity and death with equal parts patience and love and resilience. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

The four-season series was written and created by Delaney and Horgan, and much of the story is drawn from their lives. Horgan fell pregnant after dating her now-husband for just a few months. And like his character, Delaney is an American recovering alcoholic who now lives with his family in London.

It’s likely because of this that the show feels so rooted in reality. On screen, Rob and Sharon deal with addiction, infidelity and death with equal parts patience and love and resilience. But it’s never saccharine. Their humour is dry, brash and kind of gross. And their marriage is sturdy and no bullshit – which in its own way can be incredibly romantic.

As Delaney once said, Rob and Sharon are a “head down, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, against-the-wind, holding-hands couple and they love each other … [Marriage is much] richer, and more majestic, and magnificent, and terrifying than is often portrayed in sitcoms.”

This is a good reminder of what you’re capable of if you’re lucky enough to be locked in with a person you love.

Sharon (Sharon Horgan) in Catastrophe.
Sharon (Sharon Horgan) in Catastrophe. Photograph: Mark Johnson/CHANNEL 4

Right now, it feels like binge-watchers are either wilfully spiralling into pandemic panic (hello Contagion) or leaning away from it completely with comfort TV. Both are valid and fine. We’re all doing the best we can with what we need in the moment. But at a time of global catastrophe and very private grief, I find the most comforting thing is watching people fall apart together.

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I rewatched the last episode of Catastrophe this week. When it aired in early 2019, critics rightfully raved about the final scene, a poetic encapsulation of the couple’s relationship at a point when every possible thing has gone wrong.

But this time around it was a throwaway line at the start that struck me. Sharon has just got off a long-haul flight and says: “I’m so tired I could cry.” Then Rob turns to her with a broad smile and says: “Well put on your sunglasses and cry!”

Life may have irrevocably changed and I don’t know what’s to come, but I’m so happy I have someone around to pass me my sunnies and tell me to cry.