Boy Meets Girl | |
---|---|
Genre | Sitcom |
Created by | Elliott Kerrigan |
Written by |
|
Directed by | Paul Walker |
Starring | |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 2 |
No. of episodes | 12 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers |
|
Producer | Margot Gavan Duffy |
Production locations | Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, UK |
Running time | 28 minutes |
Production companies | |
Original release | |
Network | BBC Two |
Release | 3 September 2015 – 4 August 2016 |
Boy Meets Girl is a BBC Two sitcom starring Rebecca Root, Harry Hepple and Denise Welch. It tells the story of the developing relationship between 26-year-old Leo (Hepple) and 40-year-old Judy (Root). [1] The script, by Elliott Kerrigan, was discovered through the Trans Comedy Award, a 2013 BBC talent search for scripts with positive portrayals of transgender characters. [2] [3]
Both Root and her character Judy are transgender, making this the first BBC comedy to feature transgender issues prominently, and the first sitcom to star a transgender actor. Sophie Clarke-Jervoise, the executive producer, stated "we always knew we had to get a trans actress – I don't think we auditioned anyone who wasn't trans for the role. It just didn't feel right." [1]
The first series of six episodes aired between 3 September and 8 October 2015. A second and final series began airing from 6 July to 4 August 2016. [4] It comprises six episodes.
No. overall | No. in series | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | "Episode 1" | 3 September 2015 |
2 | 2 | "Episode 2" | 10 September 2015 |
3 | 3 | "Episode 3" | 17 September 2015 |
4 | 4 | "Episode 4" | 24 September 2015 |
5 | 5 | "Episode 5" | 1 October 2015 |
6 | 6 | "Episode 6" | 8 October 2015 |
No. overall | No. in series | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|
7 | 1 | "Episode 1" | 6 July 2016 [5] |
8 | 2 | "Episode 2" | 13 July 2016 [5] |
9 | 3 | "Episode 3" | 20 July 2016 [5] |
10 | 4 | "Episode 4" | 27 July 2016 [5] |
11 | 5 | "Episode 5" | 3 August 2016 [6] |
12 | 6 | "Episode 6" | 4 August 2016 [6] |
In January 2012, All About Trans organized an event, "Trans Camp", involving people from the trans community and media, and aiming to help the media provide accurate depictions of transgender people. [7] [8] Off the back of this, the BBC ran a talent search later that year, the Trans Comedy Award, offering comedy writers up to £5000 for scripts with positive portrayals of transgender characters. [2] The BBC received 320 script entries, with the winners being Boy Meets Girl (then titled Love) by Elliott Kerrigan and Nobody's Perfect by Tom Glover. [9] [10] [11]
Boy Meets Girl was created by Elliott Kerrigan, and written by Kerrigan, Simon Carlyle, and Andrew Mettam. It stars Rebecca Root as Judy, Harry Hepple as Leo, Denise Welch as Pam (Leo's mother). Also appearing are Janine Duvitski, Nigel Betts, Lizzie Roper, and Jonny Dixon. It is directed by Paul Walker. The producer is Margot Gavan Duffy, and the executive producers are Sophie Clarke-Jervoise for Tiger Aspect and Kristian Smith for the BBC. [12]
A pilot episode was shown at the BBC's Salford Sitcom Showcase in March 2014, and the show was commissioned after that. [13] [14] The main series acquired co-writers Simon Carlyle and Andrew Mettam, and had six 30-minute episodes (including the pilot episode with some re-shot scenes) set and recorded in Newcastle upon Tyne. [3] [8] [15]
The theme tune is "Meet Me on the Corner" by Lindisfarne. [16]
After the pilot episode aired, The Independent compared Boy Meets Girl to Gavin & Stacey , an award-winning BBC comedy from 2007–2010, a comparison the BBC had said they were looking to make. [2] [13]
On the topic of having a trans woman character played by a trans woman, Paris Lees wrote in The Guardian "About bloody time" and "It's great to see trans folk bringing authenticity to roles ... [Comedy] is at its best when it helps us to understand a complex and often cruel world by laughing at our own, previously unexamined, prejudices. I haven't seen Boy Meets Girl yet, but it has already put a smile on my face." [7]
Jasper Rees in the newspaper The Telegraph was rather less impressed, describing the show as "packaged in a demoralisingly traditional form of comedy". [17]
Christopher Nash Elliott is an American actor, comedian and writer known for his surreal sense of humor. He appeared in comedic sketches on Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1988), created and starred in the comedy series Get a Life (1990–1992) on Fox, and wrote and starred in the film Cabin Boy (1994). His writing has won four consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards. His other television appearances include recurring roles on Everybody Loves Raymond (2003–2005) and How I Met Your Mother (2009–2014), and starring roles as Chris Monsanto in Adult Swim's Eagleheart (2011–2014) and Roland Schitt in Schitt's Creek (2015–2020). He also appeared in the films Manhunter (1986), Groundhog Day (1993), Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), Osmosis Jones (2001), Scary Movie 2 (2001), and The Rewrite (2014).
Timothy Malcolm Healy is an English actor. He played Dennis Patterson in the comedy-drama series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983–2004), Lesley Conroy in the sitcom Benidorm (2009–2018), and Gastric in the comedy series Still Open All Hours (2014–2019).
Rebecca Louise Front is an English actress, writer and comedian. She won the 2010 BAFTA TV Award for Best Female Comedy Performance for The Thick of It (2009–2012). She is also known for her work in numerous other British comedies, including the radio show On The Hour (1992), The Day Today (1994), Knowing Me, Knowing You… with Alan Partridge (1994), Time Gentlemen Please (2000–2002), sketch show Big Train (2002), and Nighty Night (2004–2005).
Graham George Linehan is an Irish comedy writer and anti-transgender activist. He created or co-created the sitcoms Father Ted (1995–1998), Black Books (2000–2004), and The IT Crowd (2006–2013), and he has written for shows including Count Arthur Strong, Brass Eye and The Fast Show. Early in his career, he partnered with fellow writer, Arthur Mathews. Linehan has won five BAFTA awards, including Best Writer, Comedy, for The IT Crowd in 2014.
Robert Patrick Webb is an English comedian, actor and writer. He rose to prominence alongside David Mitchell as the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb.
Jacqueline Denise Welch is an English actress, television personality, writer and broadcaster. Her roles include Natalie Barnes in Coronation Street (1997–2000), Steph Haydock in Waterloo Road, and Trish Minniver in Hollyoaks (2021–2022). Welch also appears as a regular panellist on the ITV chat show Loose Women.
Boy Meets Girl may refer to:
Benidorm is a British sitcom written and created by Derren Litten and produced by Tiger Aspect for ITV that aired for ten series from 1 February 2007 until 2 May 2018. The series features an ensemble cast of holiday makers and staff at the Solana all-inclusive hotel in Benidorm, Spain over the course of a week each year.
Diane Morgan is an English actress, comedian and writer. She has portrayed Philomena Cunk on the review programme Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe (2013–2020) and in the mockumentary series Cunk on Britain (2018) and Cunk on Earth (2022). She also played Liz on the BBC Two sitcom Motherland (2016–2022) and Kath in the Netflix dark comedy series After Life (2019–2022), as well as writing and starring in the BBC Two comedy series Mandy (2019–present).
Laverne Cox is an American actress and LGBT advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first trans woman to win the award. In 2017, she became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on U.S. broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBS's Doubt.
Janet Mock is an American writer, television producer, and transgender rights activist. Her debut book, the memoir Redefining Realness, became a New York Times bestseller. She is a contributing editor for Marie Claire and a former staff editor of People magazine's website.
Up the Women is a BBC television sitcom created, written by and starring Jessica Hynes. It was first broadcast on BBC Four on 30 May 2013. The sitcom is about a group of women in 1910 who form a Women's Suffrage movement. Hynes originally planned to write a comedy film about a suffragette plot to assassinate H. H. Asquith, but after realising the plot had turned quite dark, she decided to write a sitcom instead. Christine Gernon directed the three-part series, which became the last sitcom to be filmed before a live audience at BBC Television Centre and the first to be commissioned for BBC Four. A second series was commissioned in June 2013 and aired on BBC Two from 21 January 2015. Up the Women was not renewed for a third series.
Boy Meets Girl is a 2014 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Eric Schaeffer and starring Michelle Hendley as a trans woman living in a small town in Kentucky, looking for love.
Rebecca Root is an English actress, comedian and voice coach. She is most well-known for playing the leading role in the 2015 BBC Two sitcom Boy Meets Girl. She has performed the role of Siobhan in the National Theatre's touring production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
All About Trans is a project that aims to improve how the media understands and portrays transgender people. Its aim is to "promote trans voices in the media" and engage media professionals and other sector professionals with trans topics in creative ways.
Lizzie Roper is a British actress.
Episode 5276 of the BBC soap opera EastEnders was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 3 May 2016, between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm. It was written by Daran Little, directed by Sophie Lifschutz, and executively produced by Dominic Treadwell-Collins. The episode features the only appearance of the character Alison Slater, played by Denise Welch. The episode focuses on Alison meeting her transgender son Kyle Slater for the first time since he transitioned from female to male, though Alison ultimately rejects her son. It also includes a "heartbreaking" scene between Sonia Fowler and Dot Branning about the possibility of Sonia having breast cancer, which was praised as "fantastic" by Inside Soap. The episode received a total viewership of 7,250,000 in the United Kingdom.
Jordan Redford Gossamer Gray is an English comedian and singer from Essex.