Lady

Sometimes mockumentaries don’t pull this off, showing us intimate moments that the cameras wouldn’t have captured, but Lady sticks to the bit, and it’s better for it. There are mysteries aplenty, and seemingly around every corner some bizarre object that Lady Isabella waves away when questioned.

Sian Clifford is on top form in Samuel Abrahams’ debut, an engrossing study of invisible womanhood that plays out with bizarre hilarity and emotional sensitivity.

With Lady, Abrahams cuts to the core of what every person, rich or poor, sane or remarkably batty, yearns for: to be seen, to be held, to be reminded that you matter – with or without an audience.

Maybe it’s a bit reliant on Clifford’s overwhelming firepower of performance, and we have to indulge the way it cheats strict mockumentary rules about how exactly the camera comes to be where it is at every moment. But there are laughs and unexpected tenderness in this very peculiar sentimental education.

It’s a bold debut from Abrahams, anchored by a magnificent lead performance from Clifford.

Lady is an organic, wacky, riotous comedic treasure that, underneath all of its sensationally self-deprecatingly British humour, has a surprisingly huge heart.