Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Hamster nightclubs. Existential phalluses. Toilet dresses. Lawsuits against Santa Claus. Welcome to the relentlessly weird and occasionally wonderful world of Fantasmas, a new HBO comedy curio so outré it makes last week’s Olympics opening ceremony seem solemn by comparison.The six-part series is the latest offbeat offering by the Salvadoran-American comedian Julio Torres. A meandering odyssey through its creator’s kinetic, synaesthetic mind, it follows a version of the writer-cum-star in a fantastical alternative New York, where steel and glass have been replaced with illustrations, video projections and open-walled soundstage sets. The plot — in so much as there is one — revolves around our hero’s quest to find both a missing earring and a project befitting his unusual skillset. “I just sort of Julio,” he explains when asked what he does for a living — by which he means he daydreams, muses and “feel[s] the inner lives of shapes and colours and sounds and numbers and letters”.Digressions and tangents dominate the series, which plays out as a collection of surreal sketches and non-sequitur observations. Some, like a vignette that reimagines the letter Q as a struggling avant-garde stand-up comedian (improbably played by Steve Buscemi) showcase Torres’s signature whimsy. They may prompt the letters W, T and F to pop into your head.Others marry eccentricity with a sharper satirical edge, puncturing the norms and highlighting the absurdity of everyday life — from bureaucracy to technocracy, social media influencers to school bullies, sport instructors to sanitiser dispensers. There is also pointed commentary about the film and TV industry, as Torres sends up the way in which it nominally champions diversity only to fall back on stereotypes. Elsewhere, two standout skits featuring A-list oddballs Emma Stone and Paul Dano skewer reality TV and laugh-track sitcoms.Fantasmas rails against conventions and eschews any attempt to be accessible or crowd-pleasing; it’s an approach both admirable and alienating. For all its undeniable ingenuity, the show can feel impenetrable indulgent. Yet there are also moments of poignant self-awareness in which Torres reflects on the challenge of owning one’s individuality in a world that others and differentiates. And while this series won’t be for everyone, there’s something to be said about a work that is a product of a singular artist being unapologetically true to himself.★★★☆☆On Sky Comedy from August 1 at 9pm. Streaming on Now in the UK and on Max in the US
