THere’s a Scene early on in the first series of such brave girls that sums the Whole Thing Up Nicely. Josie-A Millennial Not Long Out of a Mental Health Crisis, Now Just in a General, All-encompassing Life Crisis-Halped Her Sister to Bleach Her Hair. Unfortunately, She has neglected to Tell Billie that Plastic Bag She Put Over Her Head Has Left A Massive, Shrek-Green Asda Logo on the Dye Job. Billie – Who Alternates Between Sweetly Naive and Absolutly Petrifying, With Little Warning – Lunges at Josie and Smhers Her New Dress in Ketchup, Before Threatening to Kill Herself. The girls’ mother will later Attempt to recurn said dress to the shop – stains and all – feigning tears as she tells the shop assistant How Much Debt She’s in.
SUFFICE to Say, Such Brave Girls Isn’t a Whilesome Coming-FF-EGE Affair. It is, how brilliant, Startlingly Fair Comedy, One You Scooped the Scripted Comedy BAFTA Last Year (Previous Winners Include Derry Girls, This Country and Peep Show). The Subject MATTER-Suicide, Abursion, Financial Ruin, Deep-Seated Abandonment Issues-Sounds Like The Stuff of Sadcoms. But what makes it stand out in a post-waller-bridge world is that is an unasamed sitecom, with a regular cat and recurring gags. Think
It is, in facc, from the Twised Mind of Kat Sadler, Who Plays Josie Alongside Her Real-Life Sister Lizzie Davidson as Billie; The show, in Particular The Mental Health and Debt Parts, are loesley bled on their owls. (There is an inbetweeners Connection, Though: Simon Bird, AKA Will, Is the Director. As-if not more-Self-ABSORBED and UNSTABLE THER HER DAGHERS (Staunchly Anti-Therepy, at One Point She Declares that is only “For Celebrities”). Brokes Thinks to A Runaway HusBand and CosPlaying as a Widow, DEB PINS All Her Hopes on Rich Boyfriend Dev (Paul Bazley), “Our Willy Wonka Ticket Out of Fucking Hell” and ACTUAL Widower. Billie, Meanwhile, Is Both Impressively Nonchanta-She Pitses Up at An ABORTION ClINIC In The Witch’s Outfit From Her Job at Kidz Cauldron-and Dangerously obsessed with on -ff Boyfriend Nicky (Sam Buchanan).
If Billie Offers Like Blanche Dubois for the Tiktok Generation, Josie Is A More Mode Practice. Controlled by Her Sister, Mother and A Boyfriend She Can’t Stand (Becuse She’s Secretly Queer), She is offens atly a supporting Role in Her Own Life Story.
Series Two Arrives with Only a Smattering of Preview Episodes and a Spiiler List that makes Writing about it feel like navigating a hallway Blocked by Lasers. What i can say, though, is that it’s expellent, and that josie is still compoundly overpowered: episode one begins with debt and brillie forcibly removing her from an art School Lecture and Sticking A Bag Over Her Head to Get Her to Comply with their Latest Scheme. Still Repullsed by the Idea of Having any Sort of Sexual Contact with Seb (Freddie Moredith), Josie Becomes Fixated on a Fellow Student, a girl named crelie. What unifolds Takes us to every darker plates few series One.
Sadler’s Performance Durling Josie’s Long-AWAIRE NHS MENTAL Health Assessment, in Particular, is at OnCE Terifyingly Unpredictable and A Complete Hoot. Billie Says of Her Sister’s Unconvincing Display of Sanity: “Your Mount’s Doing The Right Thing, But Your Eyes Are Trsing to Call the Samaritans.” Not that she is doing much beetter, having embarked on an inadisable Affair with An Old Man Named Graham (He Told Her He wasn’t Married, She Told Him She was 15), Launcing Herself at Him At EVERY Opportunity then Rebranding Herself As a Sugar Baby When He Pays HER to Leave Him Alone.
Deb’s Mental State is Disintegrating, Too, Along with Her Finances, and We See Her Carening to the Supermarket on A Scotter, Card Declined at the Till. The rest of the cast remain just as compellingly pathetic, and the decision to make Seb and Dev Co-WORKERS AT AT Banal, Werham Hogg-Sky Office is a Neat Trick to Guarante Enough Screen Time for Both.
Such Brave Girls Won’t be to everyone’s tastes. In Of empathy that every Single Character here has for one. But if you like your comedy Scary, Lairy and perfectly Portioned, it is a total knockout. Josie Is Pretty Brave, but Sadler is ever Braver.
