The Other One (2017)

TV sitcom
BBC One / BBC Two
2017 - 2022
12 episodes (2 series)

Comedy about two sisters who had no idea the other existed until their father drops dead. Stars Ellie White, Lauren Socha, Christopher Jeffers, Rebecca Front, Siobhan Finneran and more.

Streaming rank this week: 540

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Pilot

The Other One. Image shows from L to R: Cat (Lauren Socha), Cathy (Ellie White), Tess (Rebecca Front), Marcus (Amit Shah)

Comedy about a girl called Catherine Walcott. And another girl called Catherine Walcott. Sisters who had no idea the other existed until their father drops dead. Cathy has a fiancé, a Duke of Edinburgh Award and a pension. Cat has a pay-as-you-go phone. The only things they have in common are their names (a smart move if you have got a secret daughter). Both of them have always wanted a sister - just maybe not each other.

Broadcast details

Date: Wednesday 13^th September 2017
Time: 10pm
Channel: BBC Two
Length: 30 minutes

Cast & crew

Cast
Ellie White	Cathy
Lauren Socha	Cat
Rebecca Front	Tess
Siobhan Finneran	Marilyn
Amit Shah	Marcus

Guest cast
Brian Bovell	Rupert
Simon Greenall	Colin
Vivienne Soan	Vicar
Ted Robbins	Taxi Driver
Neil Pearson	Paul

Writing team
Holly Walsh	Writer

Production team
Dan Zeff	Director
Pippa Brown	Producer
Ben Cavey	Executive Producer
Alex Moody	Executive Producer
David Simpson	Associate Producer
Katie Kearney	Line Producer
Alan Levy	Editor
David Bowes	Production Designer
Jane Ripley	Casting Director
Sarah Ryan	Costume Designer
Sean Van Hales	Director of Photography
Jillian Walton	Make-up Designer
Amanda Neal	1st Assistant Director

Press

In September 2017, I wrote that The Other One was a BBC comedy pilot in search of a commission: it gained that commission and returned this week - albeit with the rerun pilot (boo), but over the next six weeks it will delight and enthral with high humour and low blows from writers Holly Walsh and Pippa Brown. The only true mystery is why the fandoodle it took so long.

It is a glorious slice-of-life comedy, way superior to so much else on these days. OK, the plot is a twitch forced - bigamist dies, leaving two disparate families, in two utterly disparate class zones - but the warmth of all within, the sharpness of the writing, the performances, particularly from Ellie White as the smiling uptight coil of a spring who can't quite leave a middle-class totem untouched and Lauren Socha as the unsprung spring who can't quite leave a working-class totem unsaid... in this will lie a certain dramatic magic.

Euan Ferguson, The Observer, 7th June 2020

The Other One: funny, rude and piercingly sad

In this comedy of affairs and second wives, we see the family as I like to see it: generous, expansive, richly humane.

Rachel Cooke, The New Statesman, 3rd June 2020

Preview - The Other One

While BBC One has been busy with its Comedy Playhouse season of pilots, BBC Two has now beginning showing pilots too.

Ian Wolf, On The Box, 13th September 2017

Written by sometime Sharon Horgan collaborator Holly Walsh, this sitcom pilot acts as a showcase for four brilliant, but often underserved, comic talents: Ellie White, Lauren Socha, Siobhan Finneran and Rebecca Front. The former two play sisters - one posh, one not - who only discover each other's existence after their father dies suddenly. Tension is inevitable, but it's nothing a Supertramp singalong won't soothe. Here's hoping for a full series.

Ellen E. Jones, The Guardian, 13th September 2017

Holly Walsh interview

'I still watch a lot of comedies where women are basically sexy bystanders'

Siobhan Smith, i Newspaper, 12th September 2017

Preview: The Other One

The first of BBC Two's new comedy pilots, The Other One, centres around two half-sisters who don't know about each other until their dad dies. Sophie Davies has had a sneak peek...

Sophie Davies, The Velvet Onion, 11th September 2017

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