Bristol housemates Kerry Howard and Zoe Boyle play Leanne and Rhona, whose supermarket dash ends with them watching a hoodie execute a man in the frozen aisle. Enter PC Pickering, a paper suit and a coach to Swindon where their new flat smells of chips and their cover story is that they’re ‘on the bins’. BBC Three dropped all five episodes of the first run on 22 April 2016, then repeated the binge trick for two further series, the last arriving 10 January 2018.
Writers Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf keep the women petty: they row over lash tint, nick biscuits from group therapy and try to shag their way through the neighbour list, all while gangster Willy Whelan’s crew circle the tower blocks. The tone sits between the slapstick of a purse-snatching granny and a genuine crowbar in the ribs; every time the pair attempt to go straight they tip off their hunters via Instagram tags or a karaoke rendition of their real names.
Swindon itself is shot like a western, all underpasses and rain-soaked retail parks, the perfect nowhere to stash two women who can’t stop screaming. By the finale the body count is high, the witness-protection budget is blown and the girls have burned through three identities, two boyfriends and one mobility scooter chase. The closing gag lands: they’re back in Bristol, new names, same kebab shop, still witless.
Production Details
BBC Three / 3 Seasons / 15 Episodes / 2016
Created by: Joe Tucker, Lloyd Woolf
Writer(s): Joe Tucker, Lloyd Woolf
Producer(s): Charlotte Lewis
Main Cast
Kerry Howard as Leanne
Zoe Boyle as Rhona
Samuel Oatley as Ian
Nicholas Cass as PC Pickering
Charlotte Eaton as Jackie
Nicholas Fruin as DJ Sound As F***
John Hodgkinson as Sergeant Forrest
Nick Preston as Benny
Mark Davison as DC Snowberry
Samuel Anderson as Patrick
Francis Magee as Willy Whelan
Owen Roberts as Teacher
