Julia Davis - Lizzie & Sarah
 

Who'll be watching this tonight? (BBC2 11:45pm)

"Everything Davis has a hand in comes with the obligatory 'dark' tag but, even by her standards, this is exceptionally brutal. It's also brilliant."

I don't have a tv. I'm hoping this will come up somewhere.

I'd imagine it'll be on the iplayer on that internet whatsit.

Hopefully.

my BBC only shows programMES about dogs, kitchens and cheese.

fuck dogs.

i didn't know about this, thanks Pookie. i will check it out.

will check it for sure. thanks for the info.

Having seen a preview, courtesy of Baby Cow, I'm not entirely surprised the BBC is trying to sneak the show out unnoticed this is challenging comedy. Lizzie and Sarah are two suburban housewives (played by Davis and Hynes) whose lives suddenly go very wrong although, as it turns out, things had actually been going very wrong for a long time. The humour is brutal enough to make Nighty Night look like You've Been Framed, and there are moments of cruelty so biting that it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry; spousal abuse, murder, grief and adultery are all thrown into the mix. It would be easy to dismiss it as shocking for the sake of being shocking, were it not also brilliant. It's funny, inventive and angry comedy, and there's little that can compare.

Which makes it even more of a shame that it's being buried in a graveyard slot. Earlier this week, I spoke to Henry Normal, the managing director of Baby Cow, and asked him why he thought it was being ushered out so quietly. "It's definitely the content," he explained. "It's darker than the BBC had anticipated and it caught them by surprise." He added that, with a couple of exceptions (The Thick of It and Getting On), the BBC has a "lighter tone" at the moment and this doesn't really fit that brief. So I asked the BBC about the scheduling. The slot "is the most appropriate time given the nature of the content and the target audience," the corporation said before adding that fans are lucky to see it. "We don't always transmit pilots but in this instance we wanted to give fans of Julia Davies [sic] and Jessica Hynes an opportunity to see their most recent creative collaboration."

But the BBC should either have the guts to show Lizzie and Sarah properly, or not show it at all as Simon Pegg tweeted last night: "Seems amazing that the BBC commission a pilot from two of the funniest women in the UK then air it at 11.45pm. Jeez beeb, GROW A PAIR!!". Certainly, for the BBC to make out that it's an act of generosity to put the pilot on in the first place, no matter when, seems a little disingenuous. The corporation's concern for "the nature of the content" doesn't bode well for it being picked up beyond a pilot, either. Normal, however, thinks it's one of the best things Baby Cow has done, and says its future as a series depends on how it performs on Saturday.

So, "target audience", it's down to you. It's well worth getting home early or staying up late to watch and then you can make up your own mind, rather than having it made up for you by sneaky scheduling.

Hopefully this will be on iPlayer but considering the BBC's attitude towards it, maybe not.

Our only TV has been in the attic, I've bought it down to watch just in case it isn't going to be available elsewhere.

thanks for the heads up, according to the bbc website this will be on the iplayer thankfully

I thought it was quite good, very dark with a great cast of actors. I'm sure i would've missed it had it not been for this thread, thanks again Pookie!

You're welcome. I knew there were some Julia Davis fans on here and I only found out about it Saturday morning.

I think it was very good and I will be watching it again on iPlayer.

It certainly left me wanting to carry on watching, so hopefully there will be a series at some point.

Great, it's on the iplayer. Thanks pookie.

I watched it last night. Jesus, that is brilliant - I laughed alot, though the first half kind of had me on the verge of tears. Yikes.

Just watched on iplayer. Good. It's probably pretty indicative of how the country's changed that something far more 'difficult' like Brass Eye (admittedly on a different network, 10 or so years ago) was on at 10pm. Undertones of teenage perving, lightly alluded to, doesn't really make for controversy in my mind. Is it really that 'dark'? Perhaps I've just got an exceptionally thick skin or something.

I was half anticipating it being shit, actually, which would've validated the graveyard relegation, but so far it's quite sharply written.

i saw julia davis in soho square the other day, she gave me a funny look

I agree.

I think that the time slot has meant that the 'darkness' of the show is the thing that people are concenrating on. Obviously Julia Davis' track record is a factor in this as well.

But I also agree with TINH, it was very well written and very funny. And maybe it's a sign of the times that we can be so blasé when a comedy so well written comes along because we're fortunate enough to have so much comedy talent in this country (or is it just the same few people making all the decent comedy shows?).

'fraid so, and it has been for the past 20 years. They've all worked with eachother at some point - Julie Davis, Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan (maybe 15 years ago), Chris Morris, Hynes & Pegg (sort of) - but most of them still have it, and they're still making good stuff, as Lizzie & Sarah demonstrated. It just needs a channel to take a chance on them.

I'll agree with your post, but if you're suggesting Steve Coogan is past it I have to disagree. Saxondale is amongst his best as far as I'm concerned.

Ah yes, you're right there. But everything between that & the last series of Alan Partridge is a pass as far as I'm concerned.