Denise Welch

Boy Meets Girl review

As the United Kingdom is convulsed by a post-referendum outbreak of intolerance, goodness knows the nation needs all the harmony-enhancing, bridge-building entertainment it can lay its eyeballs on. Anything that promotes civilised values and challenges fear of otherness is to be welcomed and supported. It was in this spirit that, last year, Boy Meets Girl became the first mainstream comedy with a transgender lead character. Its return for a second series couldn't come at a more propitious moment. It's not much fun, then, to report that its good intentions are the best thing about Boy Meets Girl.

The lovable comedy bows out with Judy's "surprise" 40th birthday party. Leo's on the lookout for a cheap gift and his mum Pam (Denise Welch) is worried there'll be food and drinks spilled on her laminate flooring. With the age gap still Pam's main concern, she's about to be on the receiving end of a bombshell when Leo lets slip Judy's secret. As the chargrilled chicken cupcakes come out, the guest of honour is nowhere to be seen. No spoilers, but the ending will definitely have the tears flowing.

Boy Meets Girl started life as the winning script in a competition to find a comedy that portrayed transgender characters in a positive light. The majority of the press I'd read about Boy Meets Girl focused on the casting of real life transgender actress Rebecca Root and how groundbreaking the show was fore featuring her in a prominent role. So I was more than surprised to learn that Boy Meets Girl was rather a traditional romantic comedy that used Root's Judy's gender transition to explain why she's been so lonely for most of her life. Creator Elliott Kerrigan and co-writer Simon Carlyle made sure that Judy and her love interest Leo (Harry Hemple) both felt like well-rounded characters and by the end of the first episode I felt I'd got to know them sufficiently well. Crucially both Judy and Leo were likeable and relatable characters whose romance made sense despite the fact that she was significantly older than him. Any of the scenes in which these two characters were on screen together were incredibly warm with the majority of the comedy stemming for realistic situations. Both Hemple and Root were brilliant in portraying Leo and Judy as lonely characters who were looking for love and who had seemingly found it with one another. If Boy Meets Girl does have any negative qualities then its in the supporting characters most notably Leo's annoying brother James (Jonny Dixon) and his overbearing mother Pam (Denise Welch). However I feel that Kerrigan and Carlyle have time to let us get to know these characters a little more as the series progresses and I'm not going to judge his presentation of secondary characters too harshly in an opening instalment that had plenty of plot to whiz through. When it's at its best Boy Meets Girl evokes memories of Gavin and Stacey and whilst Kerrigan's comedy may not be as laugh-out-loud funny as that comedy classic its certainly as warm and genuine. I'm just hoping that Boy Meets Girl gets better as it goes on as after episode one I already think it might be one of my comedies of the year.

Oh joy! Buoyed by its deserved win at last month's National Television Awards, the sun-licked, unashamedly bawdy sitcom is back to beat away those February blues. And, yes, that really is Cilla Black playing herself - and giving the Garveys a far frostier reception at her villa than the holiday snap below implies. The big question is: what's happened to Madge and her fortune? Fear not, the vinegary gran has survived the interseason cast cull (unlike poor Johnny Vegas) and, when she does show up, bears an alarming resemblance to Ben Gunn from Treasure Island. Other delicious frights include Tim Healy as a roller-skating cocktail waitress throttling real-life missus Denise Welch, who's butched up as debt-collecting Scary Mary. And almost the entire ensemble joins in the final, chokingly funny poolside brawl.

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