Latest news with #KatSadler
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Such Brave Girls: TV so hilariously savage it will make you yowl with pleasure
I love watching real-life siblings on-screen. They bring a knotted history to every interaction, the way they look at one another, or don't. They may love each other; they're definitely stuck with each other. Daisy May and Charlie Cooper were the last to bottle such contradiction; I'm delighted we now have Such Brave Girls (BBC One, Wednesday 2 July, 11.40pm), returning for a second series, in which creator Kat Sadler stars alongside her sister Lizzie Davidson. Cattier than Longleat, it features some of the most savage writing on TV, and makes me yowl with pleasure. It's about traumatised women making terrible choices. Bear with. The ever-excellent Louise Brealey plays Deb, whose husband abandoned his family 10 years ago after popping to the shop for teabags. In financial trouble, she spends her time trying to lock down relations with drippy, slippery widower Dev, played by Paul Bazely, explicitly for his big house. Single-mindedness has made her grim, grasping and less maternal than a stressed hamster. Bad news for daughters Josie and Billie, who give off the stench of joint captivity, and have split into twin coping strategies: one depressed and passive, the other overconfident, bullish and equally lost. There are many jokes about sex, all three women wildly pursuing or running away from ludicrous men. But its most adult theme is desperation, which every character is thinly masking. One of the funniest running jokes is the way Deb and Billie dismiss the 'haunting presence' of Josie. Deb has no time for her depressed daughter's big feelings, interest in art or grapples with lesbianism. Life is about finding a man and moving in with him. She urges her to 'Remember the family crest! Ignore, repress, forget.' Scowling harder than Kanye West, Davidson gets to spit the most deliciously vicious lines. 'She only shaves one leg,' she hisses of an unmarried aunt, 'so when she sleeps on her side she can pretend a man is spooning her.' She's no fan of Josie's rare smile, either. 'Your mouth's doing the right thing, but your eyes are calling Samaritans.' Having turned her obsessive attention away from drug-dealing Nicky, she's now chasing a much older, married man. (They meet in the mornings, as he's too tired to get an erection at night.) 'There's nothing wrong with having an affair, right?' she asks, a shade of self-awareness crossing her face. 'I honestly think it might be the most feminist thing you can do,' responds Josie. The first series announced Sadler as a brilliant voice. Her writing pitilessly skewers the discourse around pop-feminism, queerness, sexuality and mental health. Pitiless does not mean unempathetic – the show was born of personal experience. During lockdown, Sadler revealed to Davidson that she'd spent time on a psych ward after twice trying to kill herself, and her sister admitted she was £20,000 in debt. They found themselves laughing. If you're in a raw place, the fun they have with self-harm, workplace shooting, dissociation and the self-delusion required to live a lie until you die, may be too much. For most of us, it's the medicine. Directed by Simon Bird of The Inbetweeners, and co-produced by A24, there's big underwriting, too. The first series saw a few mannered performances from the supporting cast, but these have settled in now. Its female trinity remain a scream, as the story tacks farcical in ways I won't spoil here. Let's just say they're riding that family crest like a surfboard into disaster. Dark comedy is a phrase overused, and perhaps meaningless. Granted, you have to be the kind of person who finds a mother warning her daughter, 'Try not to poison this family with your personality' funny to get Such Brave Girls. I'd argue that is the central brain-stem of the British psyche. There are strains of Peep Show, Julia Davies, Sharon Horgan and Fleabag. Like them, the show has no message other than that life is absurd, pain inevitable and people ridiculous. That makes it more clear-sighted and honest than any show telling us what to think. And you get sisters tearing strips off each other. Truly, there is eloquence in blood.
BBC News
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Such Brave Girls: The dark comedy inspired by 'bleak' dating scene
Horrible snogs. Hideous outfits. Heinous bursts of laughter, that's how real-life sisters Kat Sadler and Lizzie Davidson describe the new series of their BBC comedy Such Brave Girls."Being able to have schemes and do twisted things and [to] come from a female perspective, that was really exciting," says Sadler, who wrote the Bafta-winning dark Brave Girls follows sisters Josie (Sadler) and Billie (Davidson) who, along with their mum Deb (Louise Brealey), are desperately trying to keep their heads above water financially and their relationships the rave reviews for series one, the siblings were unsure how the series would be received. "We do talk about a lot of taboo subjects," Davidson says of the comedy, which addresses mental health, parental abandonment and abortion in a not-so-sensitive series one, we see Billie go to an abortion clinic dressed as a witch while another episode sees mum Deb tell Josie her "haunting presence" is dampening Deb's boyfriend's series took home two Baftas – one for best scripted comedy and one for emerging talent: fiction for Sadler. Approaching a follow-up was "nerve-wracking", Sadler admits, explaining how the two bronze awards on her bedside table now seem to loom over her. "I feel like they're judging me," she Davidson feels the success has helped them get away with more this time around and Sadler agrees, adding: "I've really put the characters through the ringer this year. It's more depressing, but maybe more funny." 'The funniest person in the world' Davidson says the series is influenced by their upbringing: "Growing up in an all-woman household, it was just us two and Mum, I think that's the way we see life, like scheming in the bathroom."Much of the action in the show takes place in the lavatory, with the women plotting to make money or manipulate their their characters are cutting in the way they speak to each other, off-screen the sisters are far more earnest, with Sadler explaining how Davidson's off-hand comments have helped her work through plot points that she's been stuck on for adds that she feels lucky to have her sister in the show. "She's the funniest person in the world," she aback and slightly teary, Davidson explains how she'll read early drafts of the script from Sadler under her covers, laughing and jealous of her sister's talent."I hate her. I hate her. I wish it was me. It's so brilliant how nuanced the writing is," she says smiling. The siblings' dynamic is not the only thing influencing the comedy, with Sadler explaining their mum will often send her ideas for plots. "She's really invested," Sadler of series one, she ran through the prospective storylines with her mum."It's not her, but it's definitely inspired by stories that happened to us. So I wanted her to be happy with it," Sadler adds."She signed off everything - she's got the darkest sense of humour of all of us." 'Worst nightmare' Sadler says a lot of her writing is fuelled by the things she sees online and in the news, like the "bleak" dating the new series, mum Deb says the girls are "better dead than single" - a sentiment that runs through the series as the sisters try to cling on to their says she became interested in the idea of being intentionally single, after seeing it all over her TikTok feels this has become more common and adds that a lot of her friends are single. One recent report found that the four most popular dating apps in the UK - Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and Grindr - had all lost UK users between May 2023 and May writer says that while there's lots of empowering things about being single, "it's also very lonely" and she wanted to satirise this idea in her show by having it be the girls' "worst nightmare." With the new series, Sadler wants to continue to "skewer" topical issues and taboo subjects. She says she's particularly proud of how they handled Billie's abortion storyline in series one."I'm so sick of seeing stories about pregnancy and that maternal instinct immediately kicking," Sadler says, adding, "that's not reality for a lot of people. It's not how I feel." 'The truth of being disgusting' The "most important" thing for Sadler was to keep complex women at the centre of the comedy series and to show how grotesque the women can be towards each scenes in the series revolve around the siblings and their mother spewing vicious comments at each other."I think that we haven't seen it before, really, the truth of being disgusting and the way that we talk about each other."You can watch Such Brave Girls on BBC Three and iPlayer on Thursday 3 July.
BBC News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Such Brave Girls series 2 cast promise heinous crime, horrible songs, hideous outfits and hellish quotes - "We're back and we're so much worse"
Created, written by and starring Kat Sadler, Such Brave Girls follows Josie (Kat Sadler), her sister Billie (Lizzie Davidson) and their mother Deb (Louise Brealey), risking everything they've got for a single scrap of love and adoration. Still desperately trying to escape the reality of their cramped, crumbling, debt-ridden home, it's a good thing Dev (Paul Bazely) and Seb (Freddie Meredith) are coming to the rescue. As the dysfunctional family members navigate new relationships, and some old ones that just won't go away, the return of Such Brave Girls is a hilariously dark descent into more terribly thought-out life choices. Secrets are spilled, disasters multiply and deluded fantasies spiral out of control. This series the stakes are even higher for our relentlessly tragic family. Such Brave Girls (6x30) is a VAL production for BBC Three and iPlayer. The series was commissioned by Jon Petrie, Director of BBC Comedy and Fiona Campbell, Controller, Youth Audience (BBC iPlayer and BBC Three). The Executive producers are Kat Sadler, Jack Bayles and Phil Clarke for Various Artists Ltd in association with A24. The Director is Simon Bird and the Producer is Catherine Gosling Fuller. The Commissioning Editor for the BBC is Gregor Sharp. Watch Such Brave Girls on BBC iPlayer and add to your Watchlist with series 2 from 3 July Read more: Such Brave Girls series 2 first look images released MJ Kat Sadler (Josie) Kat, Such Brave Girls is back, what can we expect in the new series? We're back and we're so much worse. I've really enjoyed torturing all the characters again this year. Smaller brains and bigger egos. I've tried to push them to their limits and really try to test the audience with how much sympathy they have for our gang. I'm pretty sure every single character has a full breakdown this year. I really put the actors through their paces (none of us are speaking anymore). Tell us about Josie's relationship with Seb Seb represents Josie's inability to confront anything and go after what she wants. She needs him or she has to look internally at why she's so miserable. Seb is an ever-loving labrador - loyal but simply will not stop humping her leg. Is Josie's relationship with sister Billie similar to your relationship with Lizzie? Definitely in terms of the fact that our relationship is based on feeding each other's delusion as much as possible, but I actually think series one did bring us closer than ever in reality. Lizzie is a lot more clued in about the world than I am, she'll be the first to tell you I'm f*cking lost. Lizzie can do anything she puts her mind to whereas my mind stops me doing anything. She actually left set to run a marathon in France and flew back the same night and started filming a few hours later. She can literally do anything. What's it like acting with and writing for your sister? I love her so unrelentingly much. She's my hero. I think she's the funniest person in the room and is genuinely a magician with her lines. She's made her character, a lot like Loo who plays our mum, have so much vulnerability and depth that might not be immediate on the page which makes her so captivating to watch. When we first started working together I think we struggled with power dynamics as suddenly I was an exec and on set all the time, and acting is a horrible vulnerable experience and fundamentally very embarrassing, but now that we've got past that and we're into season 2 I genuinely don't think I could get through a scene without her. I am always trying to catch her eye to make sure she's laughing. We're each other's biggest fan and fiercely protective - which is such a blessing when you have as many intimacy scenes as we do. It's just nice to have someone on set brave enough to say you look f*cking weird, nobody human kisses like that. That's sisterly love for you. What's the reaction to the first series been like for you? I am very scared to check social media and look at reviews. My mental health is too precarious for that. My sister is the opposite and I think has a Google alert on the show. We have a group chat with Goz our producer and Simon our director where we share any nice texts we get. I love how different people's opinions are about which character to feel sorry for, and how they feel about each character. Some people say 'that poor mum' or 'poor Josie' or 'those poor men'. I set out to make a world where nobody is right and I want the audiences to decide how they feel, so that's the best feeling. Some people think Paul Bazely who play's Deb's boyfriend is really creepy but me and Lizzie always saw him as a wholesome man we'd quite like to be our dad, so that one was confusing. What has been nice with some of the praise is that I do think it's found its audience in terms of people that actually get the show and understand what we're all about. It's given me the confidence to try and be even braver with my storytelling this year and push more boundaries. I do find it quite funny though when people think they're being nice and end up totally spinning me out - I got recognised last year and this girl came up to me and said 'I love your show but my friends couldn't get through it!' Umm….thank you? What was going through your mind when the show won the BAFTA for scripted comedy? If you watch the video it looks like I left my body because I genuinely did. Nobody is home. It was completely bizarre. I wish I hadn't dissociated really or I would remember more. I think people say they spend their life fantasising about winning, but winning was never even allowed as an outcome in my fantasy so we were in uncharted waters. The main thing running through my mind was I remember walking down the stairs from our seats and being like, you've got ten f*cking seconds to think of something really good to say on stage or you've f*cked it, and then I got to the stage and drew an absolute blank. I do remember feeling quite satisfied for Lizzie cos she'd just gone up and fangirled Ant and Dec for ages, and obviously they didn't have a clue who she was, so I thought it was cool that she then got to go up and win something in front of them. I remember the car home dropped me in the wrong place so I had to walk through Brixton at 3am carrying this gold BAFTA, which I decided if provoked I could have done some real damage with. And how did you feel when you won the emerging talent BAFTA? That one was absolutely surreal but I mainly was just worried about my tits falling out of my jumpsuit. I've never worn anything like that in my life and it was a trust exercise with body tape. Lizzie shouted up to me from the tables and that was the best bit. I got to dedicate my speech to my best friend who passed away a couple of years ago now during the edit of season one. I had a rough time doing press last year because I was so full of grief. Winning gave me an opportunity to say her name on stage which she would have bloody loved. We went for a drink in the pub next door with our exec with this BAFTA on the table between our pints, it must have been a strange image. Lizzie's boyfriend picked us up and dropped me home and I remember just lying in bed and staring at this big gold face looking back at me. What advise would you give to any aspiring writers? Just keep writing and write about the things you notice are bothering you, the things you argue about with other people. Never be afraid to cut stuff, no work is ever wasted if you sit back after a day working on a script and end up deleting the whole thing. You can't please everybody. Read every single script you can get your hands on. Find your trusted gang whom you trust with your whole life, cling to them bloody tight and never let go. Finally, how would you best describe Such Brave Girls to anyone who watching the show for the first time? It's an angry sitcom about three women trying their absolute best to bend the very warped world we live in to their advantage. It's about the narcissism we cling to in the face of unrelenting stress, the shared delusion of hope and the politics of sex and money and power. But it's also a light hearted sitcom that really needs you to laugh please or I will be so upset. Lizzie Davidson (Josie) Lizzie, what can we expect from the new series? We're back! Trust me we are just as shocked as you are. God bless the BBC and god bless the public who watched. Series two is everything they wouldn't let us do in one; expect heinous crime, horrible songs, hideous outfits and hellish quotes. Forgive us. Is Billie still looking for love? Billie is ALWAYS looking for love, will she ever find it? Probably not but my god is she on the constant hunt. In this series her desperate need to fill a daddy shaped hole becomes even more literal. What's the reaction been like for you to Such Brave Girls? Not once have I been spotted, and not for want of trying. I'm parading myself up and down Carnaby street BEGGING for it. Spanish X (formerly Twitter) seems to love me though, so I'm thinking of booking a one way ticket to Barcelona. What's been your favourite scene to film? I loved filming the scene on the piano with Carla (Bianca), we got inner ear pieces which made us feel like 90s pop stars (we did for the actual scene need to take the earpieces out because we couldn't sing and listen to the tempo at the same time, which made us feel a little less like pop stars). We got to sing live with a pianist, who was such an incredible sport as Carla had to pretty much straddle him. We couldn't stop laughing, and we got to snog which is always a bonus for me. How did you feel when the show won the BAFTA for scripted comedy? Truly one of the best nights of my life, cringe but totally true. It all felt like a dream, Loo behind me had taken her killer heels off and when it got to our category I turned round and told her to put them on just in case BAFTA made a massive mistake and announced us, and they did. I had work at 9am the next day, I was still in full glam, I went down to the stock room and hid, re-watching the clip on YouTube shamelessly over and over and over again. Did you have any input into the script for the new series? From commission my life consists of sitting and waiting for a genius draft from Kat, and annoyingly she never disappoints. The best bits of the process are when we chat ideas, trying to out laugh each other. I'll say something insane like ''why don't we do something on a boat' and she goes away and comes back with a fully fledged nautical farce. I usually get an episode draft from her at about 11:30pm, after sitting on my arse complaining that she's taking too long. As soon as Kat Sadler 'really rough, let me know what you think' (its never f*cking rough, its always fantastic) pops up in my email I know I'm in for a treat. I read it and giggle under the covers in pure disbelief of what's she's done, scowling between belly laughs, thinking I hate her; I'm so lucky she's my sister. In the morning we will have our coffees and chat about what made me laugh and what didn't (which is usually nothing) and then we try and make every line even more insane. I'll tell her when lines are too smart (purely because I don't know what they mean) or too funny (because she's given it to another actor who isn't me). Truthfully the scripts don't need any input but Kat is graceful and frightened enough to let me and the other actors tweak our lines if we think we could say them more in our voices. Why do you think the show has resonated with viewers? I think because Kat's writing is so vividly lifelike. You're reading the scripts, or watching the show going 'hey that's so me!' or 'oh no that's me' Everyone knows someone like someone in the show. Kat is an incredible observer, she's never not watching and listening which makes her scripts and characters so frighteningly real. Also I'm sure everyone has a psychotic mother, a boyfriend they just can't get over, a lesbian fantasy, and a sister who is simply a cow. Any funny moments from filming? I love cats, so when Kat told me that Billie was going to get her long lost cat back I was THRILLED. The morning they said it was the day the cat called Socks was coming in, I couldn't contain my excitement, telling everyone how amazing I am with cats and how they all LOVE me. Not to fat shame Socks but he was absolutely massive and extremely unqualified. We had to film a scene where we were walking through a field and I was holding him, and what a wriggly cross boy he was. I remember thinking if I put this cat down I am screwed because he was going to run and run and run, he turned up to set in a harness; I should've seen the warning signs. Thank god we got the take, but that isn't to say without scars; emotional and physical. Louise Brealey (Deb) Where do we find Deb at the start of the new series? At the start of Season Two, Deb is in the shit. Her finances are in tatters, she's about to lose the family house and her feminine wiles are frankly not getting quite the response they used to. I think it's fair to say that underneath the increasingly low-cut tops she is a woman on the edge. Do you think she'll ever soften towards her daughter Josie? Deb loves Josie she just doesn't like her very much and is in complete denial about that. She wants Josie to be happy and to Deb that means to have security. In Deb's head, Josie is a foundling who needs to stop pissing about with self-harm and scissoring and get a ring on her finger. Describe her relationship with Dev They have an exhausting amount of sex. I think maybe Deb actually adores Dev but she can't operate in any way that isn't heavily transactional. The Dev in Deb's head isn't the Dev most people see. Her Dev is a debonair playboy who just needs a tiny bit of encouragement to have a complete personality change and fund the lavish lifestyle she should be living. At the start of series 2 she needs Dev and his cold hard cash more than ever. I think of it a bit like Princess Leia's video that R2D2 has in his memory bank at the beginning of Star Wars. Dev is basically Obi-Wan. He's her only hope. Do you think she'll be tempted away from him or is she too fixated on getting the house? If the house isn't forthcoming, Deb will drop-kick him in a nanosecond. Describe what its like working with Kat and Lizzie? They are hilarious, eccentric, generous and incredibly hard-working. Kat is obviously a genius, though if she reads that she'll respond with 'You're a genius'. She treats a compliment like a very obedient child playing pass the parcel. Not like me who was the kid who wrapped my whole body around the parcel and had to have it yanked out of my hands. And Lizzie is a force of nature. Absolutely killer comic timing in real life and on screen. I don't think there's anything she can't do. Are you anything like Deb? I wish. She gives zero f*cks, has men eating out of her hand and weirdly seems to have bigger boobs than me except I'm not wearing a different bra. I don't know how I do that - it's an acting masterclass. What's the reaction been like for you to the first series? It is so much fun being in a hit! I think people loved seeing me behave this badly and it has changed the way casting and producers look at me which is brilliant because I absolutely love turning expectations on their head by doing completely different roles. Transforming is a lot of fun. I would dearly like to play a cold blooded killer. Kathy Bates in Misery, please. How did you feel when the show won the BAFTA for scripted comedy? It was the most crackers 45 minutes I've ever had at the Royal Festival Hall. We were off our little heads with joy. We couldn't believe it. And that's what we kept saying. Why do you think the show was such a hit with viewers? Comedy is so personal isn't it? I don't laugh at anything apart from Margot in the Good Life and yet I have had so many lovely comments about the show on social media and in person. People absolutely love it. I've had men in their seventies and teenage girls come up to me. And I think it's because it is number one obviously hilarious but has also the show has somehow dinged a nerve with a tuning fork and made people vibrate - Kat has an absolutely unique voice and she's dealing with huge things, intergenerational strife, mental health, suicide, abusive relationships, appalling parenting, making us laugh like drains while she does it. Why should people watch Such Brave Girls? Because it won the BAFTA so it must be good. Paul Bazely (Dev) Paul, what can viewers expect in the new series? What can viewers expect in the new series? Well, everything. There's marriages, there's fights, there's boats, there's casinos. I mean, you could take your pick. Dev has some difficult times and I think him and Deb's relationship definitely progresses. Describe what his relationship is like with Deb this series? Well, it starts very well but it quickly deteriorates because Dev's having a bit of a breakdown and reassessing his life and Deb gets sick of him which I'm not surprised by. But yeah then maybe towards the end something changes and there's some surprises in store and who knows where they're going to end up maybe even at the altar?! Do you think Dev is genuinely scared of Josie and Billie? 100 percent. I think he's scared of Deb for starters, but at least he's in a relationship with her. Josie and Billie are like younger versions of Deb and therefore they're more scary and they're just very unpredictable. I don't think he ever knows how they're going to respond. I think he feels like things are warming up between them and he likes them but definitely still scared of them. What's your most memorable moment from filming? Well, there's quite a few. There's Loo really trying to kick an iPad into a wall about 50 times before she could do it. There's the scenes in the boat which were hilarious because they're very hard to shoot because it was such a small boat I loved Dev when he was in his hammer time pants trousers and he'd gone a bit off the wall. I love the scenes with the lads when they go out on a boys night out. So many. Too many to choose from. What's the reaction been like for you to the first series? We have a great reaction from the show. Quite a lot of people go, "Oh, I like your character, he's a bit creepy." Which is a bit upsetting because I think Dev's quite nice. But also, what I love the most is that a lot of young women come up to me and just go, "That is my life, That's just so true. And I think that's the most rewarding thing, because it's hilarious, but so many young women are seeing themselves in it somehow. How did you feel when the show won the BAFTA for scripted comedy? Well, bloody chuffed, but also shocked because everyone had sort of said to us, "Oh, well, it's the first series. You won't win it this year. Kat's already won Best Newcomer. So it's probably, you know, it's not your turn this year." I certainly thought it's good enough because it's brilliantly written. But I was shocked and Loo was sat next to me and she didn't even have her shoes on we were just relaxing. It was right at the end of the ceremony. We were really looking forward to having a drink as it had gone on for quite some time and then I said to her maybe you should put your shoes on just in case But we really were so shocked when they shouted out for us and then it was wonderful. Why do you think the show resonated with viewers? I think because it's true basically, and Kat is ruthless in that she puts a joke in every scene so you can laugh at every scene. It's funny. She never compromises the humour, but it is also so true to the characters; even though they're heightened they are so real you can recognise people in them straight away. Freddie Meredith (Seb) Freddie, how would you best describe Seb? Seb is like a horny lost labrador eagerly following a trail of treats that are inevitably leading off a cliff. What's it like working with the cast? It's like boarding a ship being chartered by a troupe of medieval jesters whilst fully trusting that everyone knows exactly what they are doing. Always a pleasure being on board. Do you have a favourite scene from the new series? Any group scene. When all the characters come together it's complete chaos in the best way. What did you think when you first read the script? I just thought it was hilarious and I better not mess it up. What's your most memorable moment from filming? I think wrapping on the final day. It's always a satisfying feeling to finish something and getting to celebrate that with all the cast and crew was a special moment. How would you best describe Such Brave Girls? Brutally funny and endlessly surprising. Follow for more
The Guardian
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Who else can we annoy with our show?': Such Brave Girls, Britain's most gleefully offensive comedy returns
Few writers take criticism well, fewer actively court it. Kat Sadler, however, has an insatiable appetite for negative feedback. When crafting her BBC sitcom Such Brave Girls, the 31-year-old frequently runs the scripts past her younger sister and co-star Lizzie Davidson – but she isn't looking for praise. Instead, 'she wants you to tear it to pieces', says Davidson. 'She loves it.' 'I get off on it,' confirms Sadler, with matter-of-fact melancholy. 'You're like: yeah, yeah, yeah,' says Davidson, mimicking her sister's dismissive response to compliments. 'Now tell me what you didn't like about it.' Unfortunately, Sadler's masochistic streak isn't getting much gratification at the moment: where Such Brave Girls is concerned, complaints have been very thin on the ground. The first series of this vicious and relentlessly outrageous BBC sitcom – in which Sadler and Davidson play Josie and Billie, a pair of desperate, delusional, self-obsessed sisters tiptoeing around their perpetually furious mother – was met with a unanimously enthusiastic response from critics when it aired in the winter of 2023: a slew of award nominations followed; soon after, it won the Bafta for best scripted comedy. This was an exceptional achievement for two reasons. First, because the pair's success seemed to come out of nowhere. Sadler had been a joke writer for hire on TV comedy entertainment shows (Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable; Joe Lycett's Got Your Back), while Davidson was an aspiring actor marooned in interactive children's entertainment (a particular grim job at a Shrek-themed show attracted bratty kids who seemed to enjoy insulting the cast). Second, because Such Brave Girls was a product of extreme low points in both their lives: during lockdown, the sisters had a phone call in which Davidson confessed she had accrued £20k of debt and Sadler revealed she had been sectioned after trying to end her life twice. Miraculously, the pair managed to see the funny side, and decided to channel their collective misery into a sitcom – keeping Sadler's mental health issues for Josie, but transferring Davidson's debt to their fictional mother, Deb. The result is a remorselessly hilarious show about depression, anxiety, sexuality, abandonment, dysfunctional relationships and poverty that never gets close to worthy, earnest dramedy; something you could probably predict from the very first episode, in which Deb orders Josie – who has been experiencing low moods and panic attacks – to cheer up as her 'haunting presence' is negatively affecting Deb's new boyfriend's libido. I first spoke to the pair a couple of weeks before series one aired. At that point, the sisters (who have different surnames as Sadler is a stage name) were giddy with nerves, grappling with the surreal prospect of their semi-autobiographical sitcom being broadcast to the nation; each day Davidson would refresh the TV planner in the hope of glimpsing it in the schedules. We meet again in December 2024, on the set of series two. Since the show's rapturous reception and Bafta win – an invitation to the British comedy firmament if ever there was one (past winners have included The Office, Peep Show, The Thick of It and Derry Girls) – I assume their lives have been transformed into a whirlwind of showbiz thrills. Have they? 'I wish they had,' says Sadler, eating lunch in a shabby makeshift green room during a brief break from filming. 'You need to hear about the day we won the Bafta. It was just weird.' The pair got an Uber home from the ceremony, 'and it was just like: well, back to our lives. I got up the next morning, went to the office and carried on writing.' Meanwhile, Davidson – a gifted comic actor – immediately went back to her job in a clothing shop. 'And nobody said anything!' says Sadler, still astonished. 'I didn't even take my makeup off from the night before, I just turned up and was like: hey guys!' Davidson recalls. Having envisaged a victorious return to the shop floor, she was quickly brought back down to earth. '[My colleagues] were just like: the shoes are there,' Davidson sighs. She's due to go back to her day job the month after we speak. The pair may not feel like superstars, but the Such Brave Girls set certainly has a buzz about it. Although the action is set in the West Sussex commuter town of Crawley, the show's interior scenes are filmed in a defunct school on the outskirts of Liverpool, and the BBC's director of comedy Jon Petrie and two other senior producers have also made the long journey north-west to check in on one of their hottest properties. Britcom giant Simon Bird, AKA Will from The Inbetweeners – who wrote Sadler a letter asking if he could work on the series after falling in love with the pilot – is once again in the director's chair (in this case, one of the chintzy armchairs in the sisters' fictional living room). I watch Sadler and Davidson perform a two-hander, which differs markedly from that day's script; the pair alter and edit the words as they go along, sometimes for clarity, sometimes for extra laughs and sometimes just because someone forgot a couple of their lines. It is clear that Sadler is genuinely not precious about her dialogue; Bird also seems very relaxed about the on-camera brainstorming. 'There's lots of flexibility, but you also get that sense that Kat knows what it is,' says Sherlock's Louise Brealey, who plays the sisters' mother, Deb. 'They're guardians of their characters,' says Sadler, about the cast. 'So often the thing they want to change is right. It will be something I haven't noticed.' Brealey plays Deb as a fellow Northamptonshire native, so usually makes minor changes to the phrasing to suit her accent, which she amps up for the show. 'You do an accent?' chips in Davidson, with mock confusion. Brealey rolls her eyes. 'They tease me, this is a running joke.' 'It's so subtle,' continues Davidson, as the sisters descend into hysterics. 'Get fucked,' says Brealey. 'My real voice is posh!' It is hard to imagine Josie and Billie baiting Deb with such impunity: the Such Brave Girls matriarch is an extraordinarily cynical, appearance-obsessed woman on the verge, desperate to hang on to her man/meal ticket Dev (Benidorm's Paul Bazely) and ready to brutally lay into her firstborn at a moment's notice (her targets include Josie's ketchup usage, depressive episodes, unshaven legs, round shoulders and androgynous dress sense). Is she going to be as horrible in series two? Sadler jumps to her defence: 'I don't think she's horrible, I think she doesn't mince her words.' Brealey isn't so sure. Actors are meant to be eternally sympathetic to their characters, she says, but 'I would say she's pretty much a monster'. Brealey is clearly very different from Deb: effusive and extroverted, she sings loudly while having her makeup touched up and cringes as she recalls filling pauses in production by performing showtunes for the crew. Josie and Billie, on the other hand, began life as exaggerated versions of the sisters themselves. As well as her mental health issues, Josie shares Sadler's belief that trauma is an interesting personality trait; ever the self-flagellator, she seems to revel in sending herself up. Josie, she insists, 'is the worst one, because she's such a pure narcissist. She really believes she's the main character – everything revolves round her.' Like her character, the real-life Sadler comes across as thoughtful and amenable – but doesn't share her fictional alter ego's cartoonish passivity; Josie is people-pleasing to the point of ridiculousness. Davidson, meanwhile, tells me she identifies with Billie's 'obsession with attention', which her character often attracts via aggro melodrama. In person, she is mischievously irreverent but far more laid-back than Billie, who also works in the bleak world of children's entertainment (an opportunity for many strikingly incongruous costume choices; in one episode she arrives at an abortion clinic dressed as a witch). Series one of Such Brave Girls covered Josie's attempts to get a girlfriend while blocking out the constant presence of her clammy, cockroach-like boyfriend Seb (Freddie Meredith), while Billie pursued her noncommittal 'soulmate' Nicky (Sam Buchanan) with unhinged devotion. In the final episode, the pair attend their paternal grandmother's funeral, hoping to confront their father, who popped out for teabags a decade ago and never came back. (When I tell Sadler I'd presumed that bit hadn't actually happened, she replies: 'No, not teabags.') If series one was the long-awaited debut – into which Sadler could channel all the rich raw material she had accrued over her lifetime – series two is the difficult second album, requiring less literal truth and more imagination. Sadler initially didn't let herself think about a follow-up – it would have been 'too heartbreaking' if it hadn't been recommissioned ('Like: what do I do with all these thoughts?!'). The writing process was daunting and exhausting. 'I have gone loopy. Lizzie's had to do a lot of mental health work on me this year to keep me going,' says Sadler. 'A lot of phone calls, a lot of day trips, a lot of shopping,' nods Davidson. A breakthrough came when Sadler decided to turn up the intensity: the money aspect is 'more stressful, the house is more cramped – everybody's stuck'. Her north star was a determination 'to make everyone's lives worse'. I can confirm that series two is Such Brave Girls 'squared', as Brealey puts it: all the women's romantic, financial and existential problems remain but intensified to nightmarish proportions. Sadler also decided to make a list of hot-button topics to weave into the script: 'stuff that had been annoying me in the news or a concept I'd seen people get irritated about online. Then I'd think: how would our characters deal with that?' The answer, usually, is in the most unenlightened way possible: in series one, depression is an irritant, not conforming to beauty standards is 'selfish', therapists are cashing in on other people's misery, trauma is a turn-on, sex is just something to 'get through', and suicide is used as emotional blackmail. Series two, meanwhile, mercilessly satirises the idea of contented singledom, and puts uproariously novel spins on age-gap affairs and coercive control. This is one of the secrets of Such Brave Girls' success: it combines contemporary relevance – the show is essentially about a depressed woman grappling with her sexuality – with an utter lack of compassion and empathy. Yet while the show rebels against the sanctimony that has plagued modern comedy, it doesn't hark back to old-school political incorrectness. The jokes about Josie's exponentially serious mental health issues do not punch down because they closely mimic Sadler's own experiences. 'If you lived it, if it has truth, you can get away with anything,' she says. Still, in a landscape of warm, big-hearted, issue-led comedy, Such Brave Girls feels deliciously risque. For series two, Sadler was focused on 'how nefarious we can make our characters' and 'who else we can annoy with our show'. 'How much offence we can cause,' adds Brealey. Does Sadler think the show caused offence? 'I don't really look online at that stuff,' she says, brow furrowed. If she had, she wouldn't have found much pushback. Such Brave Girls has achieved a rare feat: a not safe, not nice and genuinely boundary-pushing sitcom that hasn't caused any discernible upset. Which, for a criticism junkie like Sadler, might not be the news she was hoping for. Series two of Such Brave Girls airs on 3 July on BBC Three and iPlayer. The charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978
