In a dismal time, Mark Critch's childhood tales have brought us a bit of comfort 

There are secrets to the universe that I hope to unlock in this life. Among them: what exactly is Malcolm McDowell's accent on Son of a Critch? 

McDowell plays Pop on the sitcom based on Mark Critch's childhood, which earlier this week wrapped up its first season on CBC. 

McDowell, who became a film icon five decades ago with the menacing mascara and bowler hat he wore in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and whose career truly has been legendary since, is such a hoot on the show. A saucy senior who shares a room with his grandson, he's a townie's townie … although his accent is a bit of a mystery to these townie ears. 

No matter. As I've learned with Son of a Critch, you just go with it.

I read Critch's book Son of a Critch: A Childish Newfoundland Memoir when it came out a few years ago. It's a great chuckle of a read, as he related growing up in the shadow of "VOCM Valley" on a then-isolated Kenmount Road, and going to Catholic school at St. Theresa's on Mundy Pond Road. 

In January, the television adaptation started airing. 

It turned out more than just townies have found the show intriguing. The show had the best ratings for a comedy in Canada since Kim's Convenience launched in 2016. A renewal for a second season came in February. 

I remember having a chat with my colleague Janet, who lives outside Toronto, about how the show has delighted her. The nuances that local audiences scour for (the fictional "St. Bridget's" school is shot at the real St. Bon's) are not relevant for her; she's all in on the characters and writing. 

"It's not just the place, but the people … the warmth, charm, humour, unique turns of phrase," she told me. 

A warm show in a cold time

I think the timing of the show's launch was a factor in its success. It was not just winter, but an Omicron winter, the descent of a new variant in a pandemic that will not end. Comfort television was needed, and Son of a Critch delivered, like Ted Lasso, say, or Schitt's Creek, a fellow Canadian show that found a massive American audience in its final stretch. 

While the book covers the childhood of Critch, who was born in 1974, the TV show focuses on an 11-year-old boy who is already an old soul. Moments that took place in the book over a broad spectrum of years collide on the screen. 

One of the riddles of the show is this: what year is this anyway? After all, storylines have involved the St. John's visit of Charles and Diana (which took place in 1983), the Sprung greenhouse (which produced its first English cucumbers in 1988) and the scandals of sexual abuse among priests and then at Mount Cashel (these broke in 1987 and 1989, respectively). 

In the end, the precise times don't seem to matter. The show's pan-'80s backdrop is like a carousel, spinning around so much that the details all seem to blur together. Aren't our memories like that, to some extent? 

And hasn't the pandemic itself been a time warp all along? 

It's fun, though, to pick apart what's real and what's prop, what actually happened and what was dropped in for artistic effect. 

Critch has taken licence with his own family. He plays his own dad, Mike Critch, who was a famous voice on VOCM's newscasts for decades. 

Mike Critch died in 2015, when he was 93. He would have turned 100 this January. Mark was a late-in-life baby, and Mike Critch was in his mid-60s when Mark was in his early adolescence. As I was growing up, Mike Critch's voice was townie-famous: my friends and I could take turns imitating his well-known signoff, "This is Mike Critch for the VOCM news serrrrrrvice." That second-last syllable was epic in length.) 

McDowell's character was created for the show. Critch's own paternal grandfather died almost a century ago, when Mike Critch was very young. Instead, Mark Critch has revealed, "Pop" is a blend of older folks who would hang out around the Critch household when he and his older brother, Mike, were growing up. A plot element like Pop's letters to a nun came from Mike Critch's own life. 

Listen: Malcolm McDowell tells Q's Tom Power about the twists his career has taken, right up to Son of a Critch: 

41:48Episode 22: Malcolm McDowell

Malcolm McDowell made a name for himself in award-winning films like A Clockwork Orange, If...., Time After Time and Caligula. Now, the British actor plays Mark Critch's grandfather, Pop, in the new CBC sitcom Son of a Critch. Tom Power caught up with McDowell to discuss his storied career on stage and screen — plus, his thoughts on Newfoundland.

Show 'very separate from the book'

Speaking to CBC earlier this week, Critch said he had to take liberties, both in the memoir and in the subsequent show, for the sake of storytelling. 

"People always say Fox is a boy in the book but a girl on the show. It's not really a straight adaptation of the book. It's kind of more of another way to tell your story," he said. "The show is similar to the book, but it's also very separate from the book." 

The name Fox, like others, is something Critch concocted. 

"I didn't name any of them by name because they would kill me and I didn't want to offend them, but I also didn't want to get beaten up," he said with a laugh. "So that's why you might say some names have been changed." 

The show hasn't avoided topical humour (not too many sitcoms get into poverty or sexual abuse without risk of the cursed "very special episode" label), and has made the most out of a talented cast. 

Benjamin Evans Ainsworth, who plays young Mark, is a British actor (he nails the local accent, by the way) who's already on his way to a remarkable career. He'll soon star in the title role with Tom Hanks in Disney's live-action remake of Pinocchio, and will appear in the Netflix series The Sandman, based on Neil Gaiman's graphic novels. 

I love the interplay with Ainsworth and Sophia Powers, who plays Fox, and Mark Ezekiel Rivera, who plays a fictional version of St. John's photographer Ritche Perez. Perez — who says his own childhood as the only non-white kid on the playground was anything but easy — consulted on the show, and has noted the efforts the production team took to get details just right. 

It helps that the show is not short on jokes, either. While the narratives largely come from Critch's own "wonder years" (the show owes a debt to that nostalgia-rich American series), it is filled with comic touches and moments all its own. 

One of my favourites was having Petrina Bromley (who, notably, has been in the Broadway hit musical Come From Away from its early stagings) sing stunningly off-key in one episode. 

Critch told us that he was cheered to hear from people across the country who not only found the stories relatable but something they could enjoy with family of other generations. 

"What I'm learning is that you think these stories are bizarre or very unique to your life, and then you see that people see the episodes [and they] relate to that. You might not relate to the exact scenario, but they can say, 'Well, that was what it was like for me,'" he said. 

"I think the more singular and personal the stories are, the more people will relate to them." 

Son of a Critch will be shooting its second season this summer. We can expect to see new episodes next winter, when we'll no doubt need something to warm us up. 

And that's the theme I hear over and again about Son of a Critch: warmth.

The laugh-out-loud moments are great, but it's significant that Critch and his creative team have produced a show that is a love letter to his folks and to his city, and as warm as the soup that famously steamed up his dad's glasses. 

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