Mimics, pagans and pilgrims on TV

What would you do if you had a quite extraordinary talent in impersonating everyone, from Al Pacino to Barack Obama to just any random Irish bloke? In TV land, you are probably rather baffled by it all, and unsure what to do about it as you languish in an unfulfilling half-life, until a Series of Events comes along to show you what a gift you have.

This is what happens to The Mimic’s Martin Hurdle, whom we first encounter in his car stuck in traffic, entertaining himself by putting on the voice of Terry Wogan, true to it in texture and timbre, if not in spirit (‘It’s mornings like this, that I wish I was back in Phuket, bouncing a ladyboy on each knee!’).

Martin, played in Channel 4’s new series (Wednesday) by impersonator Terry Mynott, works as a maintenance man in a dead-end job, and has been doing so for seven years. But all this is about to change, because Martin has been contacted by his 18-year-old half-black son Steven, whom he has never met. Steven is the product of a five-month relationship with Dionne, but Dionne never saw fit to tell Martin about his child, because she learnt about her pregnancy only after they had broken up. In the first three half-hour episodes, we see how Steven gradually convinces his newfound dad that his talent for mimicry can lead to better things and more money.

In a sense, The Mimic works in the tradition of shows like the American series Monk, or any other programme where the main character has a notable or quirky trait (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, mathematical genius, etc.) which he uses for his own good and that of others. But The Mimic is not a crime-solving drama, it is a gentle comedy, which means it doesn’t have the natural drive or sense of resolution afforded by a whodunnit.