Too Much? Lena Dunham takes on London

Lena Dunham has returned to television with Too Much, a new Netflix series that’s already broken into the streamer’s Global Top 10. Renowned for Girls, her controversial raw take on millennial life in New York, which premiered in 2012, Dunham’s latest offering is quieter, still uncomfortable but semi-autobiographical and a lot of Jewish sensibilities.

Hacks’ Megan Stalter plays Jessica, a newly dumped New Yorker who relocates to the UK and stumbles into a romance with a British musician played by Will Sharpe. Too Much isn’t presented as a Jewish series, but Jessica’s ex, Zev is played by Mrs Maisel star Michael Zegen (Joel Maisel) and her grandmother by Rhea Perlman so there is a Jewish feeling that is common to comedy set in the Big Apple and Dunham appearing briefly as Jessica’s sister only adds to that.

Even Megan Stalter, though not Jewish, has openly admitted to her affection for Jewish holidays in much the same way as Rachel Brosnahan did when she played Mrs Maisel.

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Dunham has spoken often about how her Jewish identity shapes her work and in 2024, while promoting her film Treasure — in which she plays the daughter of a Holocaust survivor visiting Poland — she told Kveller: “I have always played Jewish characters, because I’m a Jewish person. And the characters that I wrote came from Jewish families, which is what I relate to, and what I connect to, but always in a way that was very cultural.”

She has described growing up in a Reform household where “we went to temple exactly the days that you had to, no more, no less,” but said those traditions still shaped who she is.

In 2021 Dunham married British Jewish musician Luis Felber under a chuppah, at a ceremony led by Dr Harrie Cedar, Jewish chaplain at King’s College London.

Much like Girls, with Too Much (which is produced by Working Title (co-owned by Jewish producer Eric Fellner) Dunham continues to be ‘too much’ for some as she walks the line between funny and seriously awkward. But for Jewish millennials who loved Girls, it’s long-awaited.