Birchall’s Pints (2023) A Six-Part Amazon Prime Comedy Series from Liverpool (Review)

As my recent reviews for the likes of Michael J. Long’s Baby Brother and Jack McLoughlin’s Kate & Jake prove, when it comes to indie filmmaking talent there’s definitely something in the water in Liverpool – or should that be something in the ale? Birchall’s Pints, a new comedy series dropping on Amazon Prime from 10th November, would definitely suggest the latter. The six-part series is the creation of a ‘fab four’ of Liverpudlian filmmakers (brothers Matthew and John Reynolds, Conor O’Neill and Ethan Campbell) who go by the name of ‘Some Guys With A Camera’ and has taken three years to reach our screens.

Birchall’s Pints tells the story of a struggling craft brewery in the fictional Liverpool borough of South Kipling. Faced with competition from trendy Gigglesbrew and a crippling beer tax as a result of their unwavering commitment to sell the most alcoholic pint on the market, Birchall’s struggling CEO’s and brothers William and Thomas (John Reynolds and Conor O’Neill) resort to a number of madcap schemes to stay afloat, including the kidnapping of a bumbling, Johnson-esque local Tory MP David Bugle (Ethan Campbell) in the hope that they can force him to vote for a lowering of the tax on their output in the House of Commons.

Some Guys With A Camera was founded in 2017 when the Reynolds brothers met O’Neill at a filmmaking course run by Cottonfield Films at Plaza Community Cinema in Waterloo. From their the collective cut their teeth making a number of short films including Noel and Blackbird before the Covid pandemic of 2020 hit. Determined to keep creative in lockdown and perhaps taking advantage of the longer gestation period that those restrictions brought, they hit upon the idea of producing something more long form and, with scriptwriting and rehearsals taking place over Zoom, Birchall’s Pints was born. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over £2000, the filmmakers emerged from lockdown and got the cameras rolling across nineteen days in June and August 2021.

Directed by Matthew Reynolds, Birchall’s Pints possesses an infectious indie spirit of communality and camaraderie, providing maximum enjoyment on a minimal budget. The heart of the series is undeniably the characters of William and Thomas, chalk and cheese siblings portrayed by John Reynolds and Connor O’Neill. Where the former is hapless, considerate and sensitive, the latter is deranged and determined, and the differences between them are mined to full comedic and dramatic effect as the storylines progress. But it’s important to note that the filmmakers assembled a cast of fifty or so local performers who each light up the screen with a vibrancy and colour that befits the characterisation and scripts. Characters and performances from the likes of Scott Garner as the fearsome, spiked mohawk-adorned and seemingly self-appointed Birchall’s enforcer The College Fryer, Philip Redgrave as the egotistical, love to hate Alfie Gigglesburg, proprietor of their lucrative rival Gigglesbrew, Alisha Fariyike as Mia, the stealthy, secretive brains behind Gigglesbrew’s success, Sian Laurent as Rebecca, newly appointed treasurer of Birchall’s with the determination to whip the brothers and brand into shape, Olivia Chandler’s Maisie, William’s confidant and possesser of dry wit, Ethan Campbell as Tory MP David Bugle and Paul Duckworth as William and Thomas’ hopeless, failed comedian dad to name but a few, are all well conveyed and deeply memorable.

Across the course of the series we witness a political kidnapping and madcap machiavellian plotting, a heavy metal rock star hired to be the face of Birchall’s and reverse their fortunes, only to fall from grace when he assassinates a fan live on stage, an undercover mission to inflitrate the local student base that riffs on 21 Jump Street and a brush with an alcohol aware campaigner whose agenda is a tragically personal one. It’s a mad, unique mix of brash, cartoonish comedic excess and occasionally emotive drama and, whilst the move from these poles may occasionally feel uneven, you can’t criticise the ambition to tell such stories here, nor the relatively polished quality of the series overall. Birchall’s Pints is pitched somewhere between Phoenix Nights, Brassic and Bottom, so if that sounds up your street, sit back, raise a glass and enjoy!

Mark’s Archive – Birchall’s Pints