Boy Meets Girl (2009)

The second episode of this body-swap comedy drama, starring Martin Freeman and Rachael Stirling, and it's not yet as terrible as its premise suggests. Tonight ex-wideboy and now fashion journalist Danny (played by Stirling) launches a drunken attack on the fashion industry.

Actress Rachael Stirling's impression of a man trapped in a woman's body is worth watching this so-so comedy-drama for.

If you found yourself trapped in the wrong body, would anyone believe you? That's the predicament facing Veronica and Danny in week two of the sweetly subversive gender-swapping comedy.

Rachael Stirling still has the best time of it as she tries to get her new man's brain around the vagaries of fashion while fending off the romantic advances of her sock-ironing boyfriend Jay (Paterson Joseph).

For Martin Freeman, who now has the body of a DIY store worker and the mind of a frothy fashion journalist, life is an endless round of police cells as he doesn't even know his own name.

But he does know Veronica's name - so why doesn't he simply phone her, instead of constantly barging into her office and home like a total loon?

But there are two more weeks left, so the two leads must be kept apart a little longer. For now, enjoy their discomfort and some lovely performances as they discover how the other half lives.

Radio Times Review

What I like about it is its underlying decency. And, no, I haven't started wearing a bonnet and having the vapours at the sight of uncovered piano legs before taking refuge on my fainting couch. But if you watch it - and I recommend that you do - you'll realise that all of the characters are good-hearted in a way that isn't remotely sickly.

Boy's own adventure for Martin

Martin Freeman has vivid memories of shooting his latest TV role in the centre of Manchester.

The Times Review

Every piece of advance publicity talked about this as a 'hilarious' comedy. True to form, there was the 'hilarious' moment when Danny, in Rachael's body, has to learn to walk in high heels, and the 'hilarious' bit where he has to put on a bra. But suddenly, I found myself completely floored. This show is only hilarious if you're tickled giddy by one of the most disturbing and dark depictions of mental illness on television this year.

Boy Meets Girl, in which Martin Freeman plays Danny, a nerdy shelf-stacker who finds himself swapping bodies with a sassy fashion journalist called Veronica, is curiously underwritten. I don't mean by this that it's badly written, when you get writing, but that in a lot of places where a line would help it simply isn't there. A gender-swap fantasy, after all, is heavily dependent on introspection, on what it feels like to suddenly find yourself in a body that you find either alluring or disgusting. And for that we need words. At one point, for instance, Danny finds Veronica's vibrator and decides to find out how the other half comes. It's an open goal for the right kind of line, but all we get here is an orgasmic expression from Veronica as she/he flops back sated. In other words, we get a look on a woman's face when the really interesting thing would be the thoughts running through a man's head.

Boy Meets Girl: Pros and Cons

An impressive edifice of drama, supplemented by a good cast, but blighted by the inexplicable decision to build over the gleaming foundations with a gaudy, vulgar comedy shopping 'mall', gushing with derivative conceit.

Caitlin Moran Review

ITV1's new comedy-drama, Boy Meets Girl, is really good. The premise of the show does hold the threat that it could, ultimately, sputter out in an orgy of man/woman huggin'n'learnin' - but so far, the prospects are good for a satisfyingly bumpy ending.

After the success of Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Lost in Austen, it's obvious TV types realise they are on to a good thing with high-concept series about characters plucked from their ordinary lives to be sent back in time. Though Boy Meets Girl has nothing to do with time travel, it does have the same supernatural "What am I doing here and how do I get back?" subtext, though its unique selling point is accidental gender-swapping. Strangers Danny (Martin Freeman) and Veronica (Rachael Stirling) become trapped in one another's bodies after an accident during a storm. Now, Boy Meets Girl could simply die of cliche, but it's rescued by the leads, particularly Stirling as Veronica/Danny, who, in the nicest possible way, is thoroughly believable as a man trapped inside a woman's body. And though the genders are painted in broad strokes - men are slobs and women are preoccupied with lipstick - Boy Meets Girl manages to be both warm and quite sweet.