Advertisement
TV

Succession highlights family values for Sam Delaney

Turns out siblings squabbling over the family empire makes great TV

When Iwas about one year old, my dad left me, my three brothers and my mum and fucked off to live with a younger woman. My mum, brokenhearted and skint, was left trying to raise four boys on a council estate in Brentford, working part-time as a secretary so she had time to take care of us after school. Life didn’t seem all that bad to me because it was all I was used to. But once I got a bit older I realised it was really weird that we had no central heating, no car and were visited by a loan shark every Friday night who would come to collect repayments from my mum then outstay his welcome to make advances on her while I was trying to watch Play Your Cards Right. But every other weekend I would spend time with my dad who by now had started his own advertising agency, bought a luxury flat in St John’s Wood and was driving around in a flashy car. (Alimony? Ha! My dad cleverly convinced my mum it was better to “keep the financial stuff casual”.)

There was a juxtaposition between these parallel lives that didn’t seem right. My dad’s ad agency was in a trendily appointed space in Covent Garden. It smelt of fresh coffee and was staffed by impossibly sexy women. And the work just seemed to involve sitting around drawing pictures and taking the piss out of each other all day.

My old man seemed to have cracked it. And while it was obviously wrong that he was revelling in the trappings of his new-found fortune while his family slummed it back on the estate, I figured that one day when I was a grown-up he’d cut me in on the company and I’d be set for life. It didn’t turn out like that.

The agency sailed too close to the sun and Eighties boom was eventually followed by Nineties bust. There was no ad agency fortune for me or my brothers to fight over and maybe that was for the best. Succession shows just how nasty sibling power struggles can become when the patriarch has a business empire dangling in front of them.

Brian Cox plays Logan Roy, a thinly veiled rendition of Rupert Murdoch, toying with the ambitions and loyalties of his dysfunctional offspring. It’s written by Jesse Armstrong, who co-wrote Peep Show, The Thick Of It, Veep and various other TV modern classics. Set in the disgusting amoral pit of a New York City media empire, it combines Shakespearean drama with the blank-eyed cultural commentary of Bret Easton Ellis and the sort of brutal, hilarious dialogue you’d expect from the man who wrote words for both Super Hans and Malcolm Tucker. It’s probably my favourite show of the past five years. It makes me glad I never stood to inherit my dad’s company. In any case, everyone knows that advertising is for wankers.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Succession is on Sky Atlantic

Advertisement

Change a vendor's life this Christmas

This Christmas, 3.8 million people across the UK will be facing extreme poverty. Thousands of those struggling will turn to selling the Big Issue as a vital source of income - they need your support to earn and lift themselves out of poverty.

Recommended for you

Read All
Comedian Munya Chawawa: 'There's a dictatorship brewing with Trump'
TV

Comedian Munya Chawawa: 'There's a dictatorship brewing with Trump'

This Country's Charlie Cooper: 'We don't have much pride in being English'
Charlie Cooper
TV

This Country's Charlie Cooper: 'We don't have much pride in being English'

Danny Dyer on fame, therapy and working-class people in politics: 'We need a f**king leader'
Exclusive

Danny Dyer on fame, therapy and working-class people in politics: 'We need a f**king leader'

Alma's Not Normal star Sophie Willan: 'Care experienced people have superpowers – we're brilliant!'
Sophie Willan
TV

Alma's Not Normal star Sophie Willan: 'Care experienced people have superpowers – we're brilliant!'

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue