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In a quiet suburb of Dublin, a man can be found on the pavement, sporting a vest and voicing his thoughts. “I feel myself getting quieter. Less noticeable,” states the protagonist, staring up at the night sky. “One thing’s led to another and now I feel like without a change, I’ll just carry on in this minor, harmless existence.” His friend Paul, his closest companion, ponders this statement. “That's perfectly fine,” he replies, his robe swaying in the breeze. “Preferable to attempting to leave an impact and causing harm instead.”

For anyone weary by the noise and fast pace of current streaming offerings, this series comes as a warm cover and warming mug of blackcurrant juice.

In line with its harmless protagonists, Leonard and Hungry Paul – a six-episode program written by Richie Conroy and Mark Hodkinson, adapted from the novelist’s understated 2019 novel – casts a critical eye toward today's world; looking skeptically through its eyewear on everything that involves disturbances, abrupt changes or – goodness forbid – an abundance of ambition. This show is, instead, a celebration of shyness; a gentle tribute for those happy to pootle around below the parapet. However. Leonard (another sublimely idiosyncratic portrayal from the star) feels restless. He notices an increasing “urge to throw open the openings within my world … just a bit.” The recent death of his beloved mother has yanked the floor out from under him and the 32-year-old, a ghost writer, now realizes doubting the decisions that have brought him to his current situation (unattached; with a protective mustache; working on a range of kids' reference books for a man who signs off messages using the words “goodbye for now”).

Therefore Leonard starts an exploration for personal satisfaction, alongside his more outgoing Hungry Paul (the performer) functioning as his trusted friend, guide and ally during their regular gaming session that serves both as symposium (“Is the water heated from kids relieving themselves, or do kids pee in it as it's heated?”) and refuge.

(How did Paul get his nickname? No idea. The source of the moniker is shrouded in history. Maybe he on one occasion consumed a snack unusually quickly, or answered to a tense moment by nervously peeling several snacks using his teeth).

Into Leonard’s gentle world comes a vibrant character (the performer), a new lively colleague who cheerily offers to get rid of his terrible supervisor (Paul Reid) during the office fire drill. The rushing noise audible represents Leonard's calm life being turned upside down.

In other scenes during the opening installment of the comedy not heavily plotted and centered around what a modern audience may refer to as “atmosphere”, viewers encounter Paul's father (the brilliant the performer), a battered sofa of a man who secretly watches, records then replays television game programs to impress his devoted partner through his fact recall.

Shepherding us amidst this subtle warmth is a narrator that sounds very much like – and actually is – the famous actress. Truly, the celebrity. If you are thinking, “certainly the presence of such a famous actor contradicts the show's modest approach and at first acts merely as an interruption?” you're right. However, Roberts acquits herself well, and phrases for example “Leonard's challenge is that he lacks a ‘eureka’ face” contribute to ensuring that early misgivings give way though not complete approval, then at least acceptance.

Enough complaining at this time. The series' spirit has good intentions: that place is “located on a seat in the company of gentle comedies, pointing out the duck it loves.” It’s a series that ambles along wearing its simple clothes, at times staring into space, at other times looking at its slippers, quietly confident that no experience is in the world as uplifting as passing time in the company of close companions.

Open the doors and windows of your life, just a bit, and let it in.