Camping (British TV series)

Lore & Background

The series was produced by Baby Cow Productions, with producer Ted Dowd and other producers including Lucy Lumsden, Ben Boyer, Julia Davis, Lindsay Hughes and Henry Normal. It was shot around Devon, with locations including a shop called Another Man's Treasure in Sidmouth; a pub; an off-licence; and Budleigh Salterton beach. This is the first series that Julia Davis directed. The series was originally going to be called Robin's Test.

Reader's Guide

Camping received critical acclaim for its dark, bleak humor. The Guardian described it as 'craftily observed, beautifully performed, as well as typically, gloriously, boldly bleak.' Eva Wiseman of The Guardian likened it to 'Mike Leigh’s Nuts in May reflected in a puddle of blood.' Sarah Hughes of Frame Rated gave four stars, calling it 'tightly scripted, dense with clever references, and constantly daring its audience to blink first.' Rachel Cooke of the New Statesman called it 'the funniest thing I've seen in years.' The show was nominated for two BAFTAs in the Best Scripted Comedy and Best Comedy Writer categories. An American remake aired in 2018 on HBO, written by Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, but was panned by critics for deviating from the original's darkness.

Did You Know?

• The campsite is run by Noel, who is often seen washing his mother's stained underwear.
• Julia Davis was an executive producer for the American remake but said she did not contribute much creatively and had not seen the final cut.

The Campsite Descent

The story unfolds across a single weekend at a Devon campsite, where a group of long-time friends converge for Robin's fiftieth birthday. The gathering is orchestrated by his domineering wife Fiona, who drags along their anxiously over-protected son Archie. They are joined by Adam, a former university mate marking two years of sobriety, his estranged teenage son Davey, and his wife Kerry. The site itself is overseen by the deeply unsettling Noel, a figure most frequently spotted scrubbing his mother's soiled underwear. The tension escalates when Tom, freshly separated from his spouse, shows up late with his new partner Fay, and the two are inseparable from the moment they arrive. As Julia Davis has explained, their entrance unravels the entire holiday, sending it spiralling toward what she calls a nightmare. By the series' end, the couples are fracturing, substances are flowing, vomit is everywhere, and boundaries between partners have dissolved entirely.

Davis's Directorial Debut and Production

Camping holds particular significance in Julia Davis's career as it marked the first series she ever directed, a role she layered on top of already serving as the show's creator and sole writer. The six-episode run was produced by Baby Cow Productions under the stewardship of Ted Dowd, with a broader producing team that included Lucy Lumsden, Ben Boyer, Lindsay Hughes, and Henry Normal alongside Davis herself. Filming took place across various Devon locations, among them a shop in Sidmouth called Another Man's Treasure, a local pub, an off-licence, and the stretch of coastline at Budleigh Salterton beach. The project carried a different working title early in development—Robin's Test—before settling on its final name. It found its audience on Sky Atlantic, airing its six episodes between 12 and 26 April 2016, establishing Davis as a force capable of wielding the writer's pen and the director's chair simultaneously.

Critical Acclaim and BAFTA Recognition

The critical response to Camping was overwhelmingly positive, with the series earning two BAFTA nominations in the Best Scripted Comedy and Best Comedy Writer categories. Eva Wiseman of The Guardian captured the show's tonal precision, calling it "craftily observed, beautifully performed, as well as typically, gloriously, boldly bleak," and in a particularly striking comparison likened it to "Mike Leigh's Nuts in May reflected in a puddle of blood." Sarah Hughes writing for Frame Rated awarded the series four stars, praising its tight scripting and density of clever references while noting it was "constantly daring its audience to blink first" and "quite unlike anything else on television right now." Perhaps most memorably, Rachel Cooke of the New Statesman declared it "the funniest thing I've seen in years," a superlative that underscored how the show's dark, unflinching humour set it apart from the broader comedy landscape of 2016.

The American Adaptation

In 2018, an American remake of Camping was produced for HBO and Sky Atlantic, with the screenplay penned by Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner. The adaptation assembled a high-profile cast including Jennifer Garner, Chris Sullivan, Juliette Lewis, Janicza Bravo, David Tennant, Bridget Everett, Bret Gelman, Arturo del Puerto, and Duncan Joiner. However, the reception in the United States was decidedly negative. The Guardian noted that the remake was widely panned, observing that despite some strong individual performances, the series "deviates from the darkness and dread that made the original black comedy so perfect." Julia Davis held the title of Executive Producer on the American version, yet she has been candid about her limited creative involvement. She described participating in a week-long writers' room where her suggestions were not well received, and she revealed she never saw the final cut of the adaptation.