User Reviews

For those like me who remember the much underrated Mike Leigh classic Nuts In May. Then Julia Davis Camping brings it back to life kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The plot is simple three middle age couples meet up to celebrate a 50th birthday by going on a camping trip. Whilst they may be friends each couple has in one way or another reached mid life crisis. One recently divorced brings along a younger sex mad girlfriend. The other two miserably unhappy with there dull lives, one a recovering alcoholic the other a neurotic mother who is convinced by listening to the right music and eating the right food will prevent her son from being gay! Add to the mix a randy pubescent teenager a creepy landowner who looks after his dieng mother while serving sausages and you have the mad black comedic genius that is Julia Davis. A classic

I decided to watch this as I love Julia Davies (Nighty Night and Gavin and Stacey) I originally watched part of Episode one and like others thought what a load of rubbish. I then read some reviews in The Times and decided to give it another try. Downloaded via Sky catchup. One of the rudest and most cringe worthy Series I have watched in many years. I am an older retired man with plenty of time to watch TV. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.I can understand why some were put off but give it a proper go (I binged it) Once you get into it you will find it Sad, unsettling ,shocking but ultimately bloody funny. Vicky Pepperdine is the ultimate horror in this and Elizabeth Berrington although underused here gives a gem of a performance Well done Julia Davies Looking forward to another series.

Fully enjoyed this series, albeit a couple of saggy middle episodes, the transformation from first to last episode is amazing, so dark at times and so funny, David Bamber's character especially stood out, painfully awkward to a degree not seen before, taking cringe-com to a whole new level. Big fan of Julia Davis, best woman in comedy, always pushing it forward. If you enjoyed her previous work please stick with this. I have read some other reviews citing how bad this is, this is simply not true, at first the viewer is unsure if Julia has lost her touch but I assure you she hasn't! you cannot take your eyes off the screen in the last couple of episodes, very strong finish.

I am so grateful that I "get" the humour in this show. I would be so gutted if I missed the point. Genius characters, cringe-worthy plots. What's not to love?!

We all known an anally retentive bossy person in our every day lives. Imagine then that you had left this person in charge of your holiday? Lists, Kitty's, spreadsheets, itineraries and emails!

Whilst on said holiday, you will be joined by a recovering alcoholic and his mousy partner - together with his son who is full of hormones (no explanation necessary!) Add into the mix one half of a couple that you are friends with turning up with his new girlfriend and proceeds to fawn all over her embarrassingly! I think the observations were spot on. Especially Vicky Pepperdine's Character. I thought she was brilliant.

A must see for fans of Nighty Night.

Personally, I loved it.

Davis has been at the forefront of barely watchable comedy for over a decade.

When I say "barely watchable", I mean it in the most complimentary way possible. Camping, like Nighty Night and Davis' other work takes you through an emotional experience similar to a horror movie. You bite your lip, brace yourself for scares, and peek from under a blanket... all with a big childish grin in expectation for the slap in the face of comedy the monsters.

Vicky Pepperdine deserves a standing ovation, she's so perfectly painful to watch - each line delivered is like fingernails scraping across a blackboard. Similarly Rufus Jones somehow envelops the body of a new-age-hipster-loser-wannabe with bizarre excellence, his intonation and physical movements a constant source of belly laughs.

Not to say the rest of the ensemble isn't wonderful, in fact they all embody their cringey characters with effortless grace - the casting director deserves a medal.

Davis has brought a slightly more mature subtlety to this one than some of her previous more in your face brutal works, and if you are a sucker for punishment and love dry, pitch black humour, this is the show for you.

This series is a little gem and I'm so glad I stumbled upon it on NowTV. If you judge the series by Episode 1 alone, you're probably missing one of the best comedy series of 2016. The first episode simply introduces the characters and places them into context in the story-line. Keep watching past the first episode and the characters and story-line develop into something deliciously funny and very watchable. Yes, some of the characters and antics are cringe-worthy, but remember this is all part of the comedy. I ended up watching all six episodes back to back, culminating in an absolutely brilliant final episode.

If you get the chance to watch it - then do. It's very good.

Absolutely loved this series.... Julia Davis does it again. Just watched the re-run and enjoyed it as much the second time! Those giving this low scores are clearly aged Victor Meldrew types as this is so cleverly scripted with brilliant characters and very original...loved it and will surely watch it a 3rd time also !

Almost mirroring Davis's career with each new show she makes, every episode of Camping is worse than the one before, ending in sexual assault, disability and domestic abuse all played for laughs, except there are no laughs to be found. The word "dark" is predictably trotted out to cover for lazy writing.

By now, her shows have become Davis-by-numbers. Create damaged, dislikable characters and bring them to the very edge. While I'm sure it's fun to write, it's frustrating for the viewer, because it always starts genuinely funny with lots of potential. But Davis can't manage to write with nuance and depth, so she turns grotesque up to maximum, going for the "fearless" accolade.

Her best work has always been when somebody else has written for, or with, her. Left to her own devices, you get Camping, which only serves to highlight poor writing.

Simply fantastic writing, acting and directing. Every character is superbly observed and the plot builds and builds until the climax. Julia Davis is one of my favourite writers/actors and I absolutely loved Human Remains and Nighty Night. I get a strange comfort from watching it, a bit like when I watched The Detectorists, totally absorbing and you can escape into another world. I think it would make a great stage play too, it's got a similar feel to Jerusalem the way it starts softly and builds to a thundering finish.

You either get it or you don't, for those that do enjoy and those that don't hard luck and get back to watching Miranda.

Where do you start with this brilliantly written and performed modern day horror. It lures you in with a seemingly innocuous group of friends on a celebration camping trip for a 50th birthday. What follows is an increasingly excruciating crumbling of things held dear as relationships strain and snap, betrayals and infidelities abound, all swept along with masterly writing and first class performances. Highly recommended.

Loved this show. All the characters are just brilliant and played perfectly by a stellar cast. It's all about the build up to that final episode. Laughed out loud so many times.

I feel sorry for the reviewers that have given this series a 1 or 2 star review. To not have got the comedy in this series must be terrible. I cannot imagine what they actually enjoy.

Dark, disturbing, brilliant and really, really bloody funny. Julia Davis completely nails it once again.

Julia Davis is a fearless, constantly hilarious writer and performer. Her observations are so familiar there were times I swore she had read my mind.

The second episode is where this show really starts to take off. Tom and Faye bargaining with the shopkeeper in the "covered arcade" was so well done. Tom is such a fraud. From his head-to-toe denim, to laughing at someone else for not knowing what dubstep is, to when a reference to The Cult is made he replies "Oh wow! Well, I don't know their music but I'm aware of their impact".

It was then, I knew that Julia Davis was able to read my mind.

I had a long, proper review of this all written out but, in the end I couldn't be bothered. This is a terribly disappointing series. What starts out as a really promising comedy situation soon becomes a miserable drudge through a few days with the most deeply unpleasant human beings I've seen portrayed in some years. I was hoping for something like 'Detectorists'- gentle, British humour with a real-life undertone and some serious moments of real depth. Instead you get a bunch of vastly over-exaggerated caricatures, none of which you can feel any sympathy or goodwill towards. They are by turns selfish, pathetic, loveless, hopeless, arrogant, malevolent and nasty, never showing any real humanity towards one another. The only two you do feel anything for are the children who, if there's any justice, will spend the last episode casually murdering their adult relatives in their sleep. I'm not sure what Camping was trying to be because comedy it really is not. I suspect it's trying to be 'The Office' or 'Shameless', where characters are wittily observed and exaggerated for great effect but this slips wide of the mark if that's the case. There is no fun to be had here.

I love dark and twisted comedy so to see all this talent work with Julia Davis you are guaranteed a good time. Nobody writes characters and situations quite like Julia. I did watch this show when it originally aired and then waited ages for a dvd that never came, it appears this show was quite underrated and maybe not seen by many. It's a shame really because it's up there with Nighty Night, i also enjoyed the follow up show Sally4ever. If you enjoy dark comedy shows like The League of Gentlemen, Inside No9 or have seen any of Julia's previous work, i highly recommend this. It's like watching a bunch of seriously troubled people get together for a holiday and then slowly destroy each other's lives, but in a darkly, cringey and mostly hilarious way. It's just great fun with top notch performances.

Camping 2016, written by and starring Julia Davis. If you've seen any of Julia Davis's previous work, or have been camping or more likely you've been camping with friends and their respective partners you'll know what to expect.

Plot take a group of friends for one of the groups 50th birthday. Put them in a socially awkward situations and see what happens, then throw into the mix a male going through a mid life crisis, following a separation who subsequently brings along his rampant girlfriend, plus to make matters worse it's their honeymoon phase. Their apparent blissful bonkafons highlight the bored marriages that the two other couples are stuck in.

That's only the half of it, I can't really describe or do it any justice to the delights within the 3 hours of the series.

Picture an hybrid mix of Nuts in May with Carry on Camping, along with a heady mix of Sightseers. This series isn't for everyone but it is for anyone who has woken up with a stiff back, a stiffy or a pain in the neck for a girlfriend.... Camping the hobby is great but gets more and more painful the older you get, Camping the series is great and improves like a warm beer in the bottom of your sleeping bag. To misquote control freak Fiona "this work's for me".

Oh no! Its all the above and none of it, its a grotesque nightmare in which social norms and expectations are thrown away. The films of Ben Wheatley comes to mind and what appears to be fun isn't.

This is one to watch if you want to see the very dark side of writers Julia Davis and Vicki Pepperdene, but you do have to stick to the end.

A classic 10/10.

This would get ten stars as a tragedy or a horror film but it's an odd choice for a comedy. The actors are fantastic, I was initially intrigued with so many well drawn characters but I wasn't looking for such a deeply bleak and upsetting nightmare. Getting to the end of episode 5 has been a sick endurance test. And it ends very badly apparently. Whoopee! Why would anyone want to see children genuinely distressed? Who gets pleasure from 'cringe, cringe, that guy's letting children cope with Mum's coma on their own. HAHAHA!'? Which is not credible anyway, as mid life crisis man is just idiotic rather than monstrously neglectful. Maybe it's for people who don't find real life horrifying enough. Or if you need reminding of childhood traumas or recent divorces

"Does this review contain spoilers?" I'm asked. No, but "Camping" certainly does contain a massive spoiler in the shape of Julia Davis's Giant Ego.

"Camping" COULD be an absolutely fantastic comedy series. It starts great with the gloriously funny Vicki Pepperdine and Steve Pemberton and a very creepy farmer...but then The Author inserts herself and begins to spoil everything.

There is so little great comedy around these days. The terrible shame is that Julia Davis is a really great comedy writer who then proceeds to ruin her own work with her ego. She is absolutely in love with herself. Yes she is sexy, as most blokes would agree, but that is not what comedy is about!

Comedy requires some form of vulnerability and Julia Davis has none. She is obsessed with herself and actually likes to surround herself with less than attractive, albeit talented, actors. She did this in "Nighty Night" and she does it again in "Camping".

If Julia Davis hadn't insisted on inserting herself in it, if you'll pardon the expression, I would have given "Camping" 10 stars. She needs to get over herself.

I thought comedy was meant to be funny, and I love dark comedy, but this is dreadful. I watched the first episode and I found it to be totally cringe worthy to be honest. I have no idea why someone as talented as Steve Pemberton would get caught up in this nonsense. The main character is a very bossy out of control wife, which is OK for 30 seconds but very quickly becomes a major irritating factor which spoils the show. The attempts at humour are shallow and the bloke with his new girlfriend is just embarrassing. I can only assume that the previous review who gave it 10 stars was watching a different show. I did not laugh once and 'endured' the show as my partner wanted to see it. At the end we just looked at each other in bewilderment. Absolute garbage.