Written by Lizzie's teacher, Louise Haile.
It’s back and braver than ever: Series 2 of ground-breaking BBC comedy Such Brave Girls has lost none of its power to shock, rock and shake us all up. With the coveted BAFTA award for Best Scripted Comedy under its belt and starring Hurtwood’s very own Lizzie Davidson at the very heart of what The Independent review calls its ‘almost feral comic energy’, this is quietly assured landmark entertainment. Going way beyond the more curated surfaces of recent overtly middle-class shock/horror bad-girl-revelation shows, this decidedly uncomfortable show raises the questions on the financial and mental vulnerability of women even as it makes us gasp at what horrors it drags into the light. Why do the old problems persist? Groans of repulsion are balanced with uncomfortable recognition of gender tactics in the ongoing wars of emotional and economic survival, and, phew, made (just about) acceptable with totally laugh-out-loud euphemism, farce and buffoonery. Brilliant writing and superb acting are the order of the day. As ever comedy carries us along, demands our attention as it slips under the door, while politically correct debate is tentatively trying the door handle.
Kat Sadler’s writing in this second series feels more assured, clearer and more unapologetic in its aims, the characters gradually demanding understanding and even empathy from us. Playing angst-written Josie, bullied victim of the family, alongside her real-life sister Lizzie, there is powerful sense that we are rightly laughing at our own inadequacies, that laughter is the only answer in the face of the proprietorial nonsense behind which we hide. We laugh; otherwise we would just weep. Move over Jane Austen: make room for ironic mockery of a more bawdy and visceral kind. Not for the faint-hearted (nor for my young grandsons) and revealing a kind of persistent vulgarity and vulnerability that is innately female, we can only hope it
will make more sense to a new generation of young boys learning to see girls more truthfully. Got to love it!
Ultimately it seems clear that much of the power of this show comes from the relationship between the real-life sisters, and their capacity to turn painful life- struggles into blisteringly creative comedy. Lizzie always had the power to unsettle and challenge those around her, which she used to great effect in the Hurtwood classroom. Her character Billie is both a monstrous nightmare and an ironic revelation, with roots in all the great comic writers from Chaucer’s Wife of Bath to Austen’s Lady Catharine or Mrs Elton, by way of Shakespeare himself. Lord what fools we mortals be eh? In lean times let us not forget that we potentially learn more from the comic than the tragic mode. Bravo again Team SBG and Lizzie in particular for holding up a mirror to us all and making us laugh. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
