TV series can have us cheering for such unlikely “heroes” as New Jersey mobsters, vampires and even serial killers. But drunken, boorish Britons high on cocaine and behaving badly abroad are a much tougher sell. Stags – a disappointing comedy-drama about just such idiots – doesn’t pull it off.
Groom-to-be Stu (Nico Mirallegro) and his pals have gone on a stag do to South America (because what working class lad from London doesn’t hold his stag do in South America?!). There are eight on the trip: childhood friends Ryan (Corin Silva) and Ant ( Charlie Cooper ), the father and brother of Stu’s intended, workmate Greg (Asim Chaudhry), and uni pals Clem (Sophie Lenglinger) and Hugo (Paul Forman). The discovery that Stu is university educated is one of the least convincing elements of this series.
It’s quite difficult to accept that he even went to school. To propose, he’d initially planned a mudlarking scenario in which he’d “discover” a £5,000 engagement ring he’d previously hidden on the banks of the Thames. That plan failed when he forgot where the ring was.
Nevertheless, the gang have a wild old time in an unnamed South American country – cue the inevitable drinking, snorting, vomiting sequence. But the stag do is only the beginning of this unlikely story. On their way home, when Greg tries to smuggle a large amount of drugs through customs, they’re all arrested and sent to a brutal prison on a remote island.
We know it’s brutal because as the .