Have you ever wondered how the male stripper review show Chippendales got its start? Yeah, me neither. But it turns out it’s a strangely interesting story – albeit one that mirrors many miniseries of late: idea person comes up with something, they bring in other people, tensions mount, relationships fray, things go from bad to really, really bad. After watching the eight-episode Hulu miniseries Welcome to Chippendales, I found myself taken by the uniformly strong performances across the stellar cast (seriously, I’m impressed at the caliber of actors the series attracted – save for one performance that falters late), but less than enthralled with the story itself. Yes, it’s a true one, but the story never clicks into the next gear it needs to in order to make it something more than a conduit for the actors to emote, charm, and eventually implode.
Welcome to Chippendales tells the story of Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee (Kumail Nanjiani, doing mostly strong work in the most complex role he’s had yet), an Indian immigrant looking to live out the American dream. When his backgammon club fails to become a hit, he stumbles upon the idea of a female-focused strip club, filling a niche in the nightlife community that had been missing. Teaming up with Paul Snider (a great Dan Stevens), a night club promoter, and hiring on some male strippers, Banerjee creates a hit with Chippendales. When choreographer Nick De Noia (Murray Bartlett, giving a hell of a performance and stealing every scene he’s in) arrives on the scene to whip the dancers into shape as a real revue, the transformation is complete and Chippendales becomes a success. But, as with so many stories, this is only the jumping off point for the backstabbing, threats, and the slow disintegration of the partnership between Banerjee and De Noia (while you can check Wikipedia to see just how this all goes down, I’d recommend watching it play out in the series rather than reading the CliffsNotes).
While the story itself never really turned into anything special for me over the course of its run, I did find myself coming back episode after episode for the performances. Bartlett, in particular, is an absolute star as De Noia. While it would have been easy for him to lean into De Noia’s obvious charm (there’s a reason he became the outward face of the company, outside of his own self-promotion) and coast, Bartlett is able to dial his performance up or down depending on the situation. When he’s teamed up with a great Andrew Rannells later in the series (Rannells plays De Noia’s partner, both in and out of the office), the show is at its strongest. Throw in Juliette Lewis as Denise, the company’s costume designer and De Noia’s bestie, and the trio’s appearances electrify the series. My one major complaint about the series is that there isn’t enough Lewis throughout – although each time she appeared on screen it made me long for the return of Showtime’s Yellowjackets, a series that understands what it has with Lewis and deploys her effectively.
On the Banerjee side of the story (as later episode of the series are split into a De Noia arc and a Banerjee arc), things are less compelling. Part of that is that Banerjee’s story is one of a man reaching the top – successful company, wonderful family (Annaleigh Ashford plays Irene, Banerjee’s wife and Chippendale’s accountant, and is also woefully underused), more money than he knows what to do with – and then succumbing to his own paranoia and sense of entitlement. The story isn’t particularly surprising and all the twists and turns are telegraphed rather obviously. So, in order for this half of the tale to work, it needs to have the performances to match the Bartlett-led side of things. While Nanjiani is good in the role – particularly in the early episodes, as we see Banerjee coming into his own and his awkward inability to adapt to the monumental changes in his life with any sort of grace – he’s not quite able to present the transition from the lighter version of the character to the much darker, more tortured side of him. Part of that is the script, which is great about exploring the business and its expansion but fails to spend adequate time with its core characters (outside of De Noia) so that when it needs to lean on them to tell us of the darkness to come, the writing falters.
But Nanjiani is also left on an island of his own by the story’s structure. With Ashford’s Irene underdeveloped and no additional characters around him (Robin de Jesus’s Ray Colon, a jack of all trades who offers his services to Banerjee, pops up occasionally as a confidant of sorts, but he’s not around long enough to create a real relationship between the two characters that would be helpful in the final pair of episodes), Nanjiani is asked to do a lot of the heavy character development on his own – a complex task for even the strongest dramatic actors. And, try as he might – and he’s winning when the script calls for him to be coy or self-deprecatingly funny – Nanjiani can’t make us believe that this character went from mousy business man to cold, calculating manipulator in the span of the series.
What the series needed was less time spent on grounding Banerjee’s greed and more time spent on exploring his relationships with Irene and others. If this had been done, Nanjiani would have had the character depth to really sell the character’s decline. On the flip side, the series does take the time to flesh out De Noia, which in turn allows Bartlett to take what could have been a one-note character and turn him into the beating heart of the series. It’s disappointing that more time wasn’t spent on ostensibly the series lead to provide him with the same treatment – but Nanjiani is able to come close to saving the thin writing through his work.
So, is Welcome to Chippendales worth a watch? Absolutely. Yes, the script is thin at points, but I would gladly spend another eight hours watching Bartlett, Lewis, and Rannells bounce off one another. They are worth the price of admission. Add to it some strong work early in the series from Nanjiani and, if it’s your thing, a number of attractive men, Welcome to Chippendales is a series worth your time.
Welcome to Chippendales premieres on Tuesday, November 22 on Hulu with two episodes. The series will be released weekly. All eight episodes were provided for review.
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