This five-star British series is shocking and confronting – and it’s the best comedy in years

19 hours ago 3

Such Brave Girls ★★★★★

One of the most gasp-inducing black comedies in years, Such Brave Girls returns for a second season, and while it might not seem possible, things are bleaker for sisters Josie (Kat Sadler) and Billie (Lizzie Davidson) and their mum, Deb (Louise Brealey). The creepy Seb (Freddie Meredith) is living with them and paying the bills after Josie was cajoled into marrying him despite her identifying as gay (“You just think you’re gay – for now”, Deb tells her).

Kat Sadler, Lizzie Davidson and Louise Brealey as Josie, Billie and Deb.

Created and written by Sadler, who stars as Josie – Lizzie Davidson is her real-life sister – Such Brave Girls is inspired by Sadler’s experience with mental illness. But if you haven’t seen the first season (and you should: it won two BAFTAs, one for best scripted comedy and one for emerging talent: fiction for Sadler), this is no gentle portrayal of poor ill health. Sadler doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and believes melancholy – and worse – is as fair play as anything else for analysis through humour.

The first season featured multiple taboo subjects, from one-liners about suicide to Josie’s excitement at discussing her trauma, gags about abortion and an unforgettable scene involving both sisters and a pregnancy test.

There’s also family dysfunction: Deb, Billie and Josie spend much of their time trying to keep their heads above water, financially and emotionally, and live in a hefty amount of denial. The girls’ father went out for teabags a decade earlier and never came back, although Billie still holds out hope he may return – even after learning that he skipped his mother’s funeral for fear of running into them.

<i>Such Brave Girls</i> creator and writer Kat Sadler (left) and real-life sister Lizzie Davidson.

Last season ended with Deb’s lies stacking up as fast as her money was dissipating while she waited for Dev, the man of her dreams (largely because of the fact he was employed and owned a “massive house”) to start paying for things and propose. Mostly just the paying thing.

Some of those lies are starting to come undone, much like Josie does at least once an episode. For most of this season, Josie is struggling – and who can blame her, having been bullied into marrying the repugnant Seb, so incompetent he’s fired for making a dodgy prank call to his boss from his mobile phone.

Briefly, Josie is happy (albeit through a completely delusional relationship she thinks she’s having), and Billie is taken aback at seeing her smile. “It’s like your mouth’s doing the right thing but your eyes are trying to call the Samaritans,” she says.

Deb, Billie and Josie make yet more ill-advised decisions (usually after a plan is hatched in their bathroom), and their brilliantly written dialogue takes aim at everything from mental illness platitudes to pop feminism and sexuality.

There’s Josie attempting to section herself, Billie unsuccessfully trying to land a sugar daddy and Deb herself experiencing anxiety and depression. “I haven’t had this much stomach pain since I thought you were a miscarriage,” she says to Josie about her new-found anxiety. “That’ll teach me to get my hopes up.”

If you think the work of British comic Julia Davis is dark, Such Brave Girls is here to take you to another level. And if it’s all too much, take Deb’s motherly advice: “Remember the family crest: Ignore, repress, forget”.

Such Brave Girls is streams on Stan from July 4.