Larry David returns to UK screens with season six of Curb Your Enthusiasm

By season six of anything in the UK, whatever it is that it is, it stinks. And we only do series comprising six episodes, not dozens like American shows do. Anything worth watching tends to quit while it’s ahead after two or three goes, tops (think Spaced, Alan Partridge, Black Books).

So if Curb Your Enthusiasm was a British show it would be on its last legs by now, to say the least – but Larry David has just come up with some of his strongest material yet.

Since 2000, David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, has been playing an exaggerated version of himself in this mostly improvised show. So finely-honed as to look deceptively effortless, the character of Larry generally meanders his way from one disastrously offensive human interaction to another, somehow managing to live another day.

The overriding story arc in series six comes from Larry’s humanitarian wife Cheryl deciding they should take in a homeless family needing an emergency shelter after a hurricane – enter the Blacks, led by Loretta (Vivica A Fox) and brother Leon (JB Smoove, an unfortunate stage name if ever there was one). “And you’re black?” Larry ponders out loud when they meet for the first time. “That’s kind of like my name being Larry Jew. Because I’m Jewish,” he points out to the dumbfounded strangers.

There’s a lot of upheaval throughout the ten episodes and some unexpected events – and although it could be seen as a bit of spring-cleaning with a long-running formula (introducing new characters, changing the nature of certain relationships), it actually works very well. The last scenes of the season finale are without doubt some of the best stuff the show has ever come up with – and it’s worth being patient and not digging out spoilers for a spectacular payoff.

The interesting thing about Curb, as it was with Seinfeld, is that each series is tied up so neatly it could easily end for good then and there. Ever since Larry “died” at the end of season five and went up to heaven with a bearded Sasha Baron-Cohen and Dustin Hoffman, each extra series has been a welcome surprise – and a seventh is now apparently likely.

But season six doesn’t so much rely on cameos as much as before. Vivica A Fox and JB Smoove steal every scene they’re in, and Steve Coogan pops up as a useless therapist for a couple of episodes, but they’re definitely there on their own merits rather than for the sake of a famous face, which I think the show has been guilty of in the past. The friendship between Larry and Leon in particular is a refreshing new mischief (clip contains strong language):

Susie’s foul-mouthed rants, Larry’s painful misunderstandings, the joyfully insincere relationships between characters like Richard Lewis, Ted Danson and Marty Funkhouser…. In the wrong hands, this kind of comedy repetition would all have become old a long time ago (and it was the same with Seinfeld), but David has this genius touch of keeping such familiar plotlines falling into ‘not this again’ territory.

And the best thing is, no matter how appalling, inappropriate, unnecessary and toe-curling some of Larry David’s behaviour can be, why do we all wish we could get away with being like him? Meanwhile, here’s a classic Larry altercation as he goes about his business at an ice cream parlour. Curb Your Enthusiasm is on More4 every Monday at 10.35.

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