Created by and starring Kat Sadler, this BBC Three comedy follows sisters Josie and Billie plus their mother Deb, all skint, all famished for approval, all prepared to humiliate themselves first. The premise sounds like kitchen-sink misery: Josie’s wrestling with mental-health collapses and compulsory heterosexuality while Billie ricochets between abusive boyfriends and Deb clings to a bloke who’d rather be anywhere else. The tone, however, is pure acid sitcom, shot through Merseyside estates, bookshops and soft-play hellholes where every attempted escape tightens the family knot.
Sadler writes herself the prickliest role, letting scenes run just long enough for a joke to curdle into self-reproach, then back into punchline. Real-life sister Lizzie Davidson plays Billie with the same bruising candour, while Louise Brealey’s Deb turns maternal delusion into a sustained high-wire act. Direction by Simon Bird keeps the camera still, forcing the audience to sit inside every mortifying silence until laughter feels like complicity.
The first six-episode series landed on iPlayer in November 2023 and cleaned up at the 2024 BAFTAs for Best Scripted Comedy; a second series followed in July 2025 with the same instant-drop release pattern. Critics reached for comparisons like Fleabag early on, but the show’s meaner, more claustrophobic, happy to let its characters stay losers. Rotten Tomatoes logged 100% for both runs, not because the series is cosy but because it refuses to sand down its own shame.
Production Details
BBC Three / 2 Seasons / 12 Episodes / 2023 - Present
Created by: Kat Sadler
Showrunner(s): Simon Mayhew-Archer, Kat Sadler, Stephen McCrum
Writer(s): Kat Sadler
Producer(s): Catherine Gosling Fuller
Cinematography: Edward Tucker
Main Cast
Kat Sadler as Josie
Louise Brealey as Deb
Lizzie Davidson as Billie
Freddie Meredith as Seb
Jude Mack as Sid
Sam Buchanan as Nicky
Carla Woodcock as Bianca
Amy Trigg as Claire
Paul Bazely as Dev
Jade Ogugua as Shop Assistant
Jennifer Daley as Jen
Haruka Kuroda as Prenatal Nurse
