Harry Hepple

Series finale of the sitcom about a transgender woman's romance with a younger man. Judy (Rebecca Root) and Leo (Harry Hepple) are getting married in the morning, which means mild family ructions - Janine Duvitski excels as Judy's annoying mum - and easily resolved church-on-time panics before the couple walk down the aisle. Buoyed by deserved audience goodwill, Boy Meets Girl amiably gets away with a script full of creaking, textbook jokes.

When this romcom about a man falling for a transgender woman first arrived, it was all a bit controversial.

What a thoroughly modern love story, and hip hip hooray to the BBC we thought as we applauded trans actress Rebecca Root for her lead role.

Now, of course, as Judy (Root) and Leo (Harry Hepple) return for a second series, the controversy has gone but we can still enjoy this wonderfully sweet comedy drama.

The plot hardly rattles along, in fact it pootles, with perhaps the odd skip. But that's fine. Not everything we watch should require an emergency manicure the next day.

As we rejoin Judy and Leo, they are in love, totally committed and making plans for a future together. But, plot twist alert, Leo has been offered a new job.

Good salary, pension, five weeks holiday. Perfect?

No, it's in London, a fair few miles from their Newcastle home. Well, we needed some kind of spanner in the works to keep us interested.

"It will be ok, we'll see each other every weekend," says Leo. Oh right, because that always goes without a hitch in sitcoms.

Meanwhile, Harry's mum Pam (Denise Welch) decides to join Judy's mum Peggy (Janine Duvitski) at a transgender support group, but is horrified when someone asks how long she's been living as a woman.

"It's the butch haircut and the way you walk," explains Peggy, helpful as ever.

And elsewhere, Anji is alarmed to discover the salon has rats. But there's a silver lining for Jackie, who takes a shine to the pest controller.

Boy Meets Girl season 2 episode 1 review

All things being done, this is a triumphant return for Boy Meets Girl. The charm and heart-warming nature of the first year is still present. The first season had education and acceptance very much at its core and thankfully, this second run looks set to carry on that theme.

Boy Meets Girl: A welcome return?

It's almost as if they didn't have any ideas and instead have given us a lot of well-worn cliches instead. The long distance job offer, the creation of a new business and a secret relationship are all well-worn comic tropes and Boy Meets Girl doesn't seem to what to do anything particularly new with any of them.

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 best thing I watched last week: Boy Meets Girl

It is Harry Hepple and Rebecca Root's great chemistry that give it such heart.

Boy Meets Girl: a transgender comedy full of warmth

BBC Two's new sitcom starring Rebecca Root and Harry Hepple doesn't shy away from issue-based jokes, but it also charms with old-fashioned sentimentality.

Second episode of a cute, convention-squashing sitcom, following transgender woman Judy (Rebecca Root) and new boy Leo (Harry Hepple) as they embark on romance. This week, the pair's Sunday lunch is gatecrashed by Judy's loquacious mum and sister, an old friend who hasn't seen Judy since before she transitioned and Leo's family, who are unaware of her past. "It could go seriously Jeremy Kyle!" predicts Judy's sister, Jackie, perhaps underestimating the potential for a foot-in-mouth outbreak.

A game-changing new sitcom, mixing a sherbet-sweet, Gavin & Stacey-style plot with not-so-typical leads: transgender woman Judy (Rebecca Root) and her younger suitor Leo (Harry Hepple). In this opening episode, the first hurdle for the new pairing isn't gender-related - rather, it's that Leo's mum is fuming at their 14-year age gap. After E4's LGBT anthology Banana featured a transgender character humiliated by her ex, it's refreshing to see a more positive trans-themed story on TV, and an adorable one at that.