Derry Girls
- TV sitcom
- Channel 4
- 2018 - 2022
- 19 episodes (3 series)
A warm, funny and honest look at the lives of ordinary people living under the spectre of the Troubles, all seen through the eyes of a local teenager. Stars Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Jamie-Lee O'Donnell, Nicola Coughlan, Louisa Harland, Dylan Llewellyn and more.
Streaming rank this week: 306
Press clippings Page 23
The Irish women making TV's best comedies
From Channel 4's Derry Girls to RTE's Nowhere Fast, female-led Irish comedies are coming thick and fast. We talk to the people behind them, and ask if they can help drive societal change.
Shilpa Ganatra, The Guardian, 26th January 2018In order "to give their wee lungs a bit of a clear out", a group of teenagers from Chernobyl visit Derry. Naturally, forthright Erin, a naif who imagines herself worldly, expects her house guest to be appropriately grateful, only to find sophisticated Katya (Diona Doherty) treats her with disdain. Elsewhere, Granda Joe makes a new friend, a development that goes down badly with his daughters. Lisa McGee's Troubles-set comedy continues to be a rare combination of poignant and laugh-out-loud funny.
Jonathan Wright, The Guardian, 25th January 2018Derry Girls - reviewed by a real Derry Girl
Claire Allan grew up in Derry in the '90s - and attended the same high school depicted in Channel 4 comedy Derry Girls. She looks at how the hit show captures that time and place.
Claire Allen, i Newspaper, 25th January 2018Thank you, Derry Girls, for telling the truth
There have been times, I must admit, when I have quietly put off watching plays and television series set in Troubles-era Northern Ireland. It's not that I don't think they will be good. It's just that, having grown up there in the 1970s and 1980s, with stories of grim tit-for-tat murders regularly on the nightly news, I sometimes have to brace myself imaginatively to re-enter the bullets and barbed-wire side of our history: it might be painful if a dramatist conveys the events and atmosphere accurately, and painful in another way if they don't.This caveat does not apply to Derry Girls, the new Channel 4 series by Lisa McGee, which follows a bunch of 16-year-old Catholic schoolgirls in the early Nineties.
Jenny McCartney, The Telegraph, 25th January 2018Ma Mary and Aunt Sarah are the unsung heroes
The marvellous mammies are every inch as funny as their wonderful wains.
Sarah Doran, Radio Times, 25th January 2018Derry Girls: realistic comedy about young women in NI
The Channel 4 sitcom is nostalgic but it's also a truthful and funny representation of teenage girls growing up during the Troubles.
Caroline Magennis, The Independent, 23rd January 2018Derry Girls is the funniest thing on TV
Lisa McGee's sitcom has already been renewed for another series by Channel 4, and deserves it for its wicked sense of humour and pitch-perfect 90s nostalgia.
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian, 19th January 2018Derry Girls, episode three review
Derry Girls (Channel 4) feels like an indie antidote to the full-on populism of Mrs Brown's Boys.
Jasper Rees, The Telegraph, 19th January 2018Apart from a slightly improbable precocity about the performances of the schoolgirls of its title, Lisa McGee's sitcom, set in Ireland in the mid-90s at the tail end of the Troubles, is highly engaging, bristlingly funny stuff. This week, they are particularly on edge having been up all night studying for an exam. However, a dubious case of an "apparition" affords them the chance to get out of the exam and spend quality theological time with the dishy Father Peter.
David Stubbs, The Guardian, 18th January 2018TV preview: Derry Girls, Episode 3, C4
It's not the most original plot in the history of comedy but the cast pulls it off due in main to the sheer energy they exude.
Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 18th January 2018