Derry Girls

I'd almost given up on TV sit-coms, in fact the last one I really enjoyed was "The I.T. Guys" and how many years ago was that? Anyway, it was my wife who alerted me to this series and a quick look at the first two episodes of the second series found me looking up series one which she'd already watched and I have to say she wasn't wrong, as I found it absolutely hilarious.

It reminded me of so many of my favourite sit-coms, like "Father Ted", naturally, "Press Gang" and yes, "The I.T. Guys", but it still has its own identity. Set in early 1990's Derry in Northern Ireland before the Good Friday Agreement came into place, it concerns the misadventures of a group of five young friends, four female and Irish, one male and English and by extension their eccentric families.

It makes clever use of the political and religious backdrop for the comedy, the families in question being Roman Catholics living in the predominantly Protestant town of Derry, so that one episode has the hapless family attempting to head for a weekend in the country while an Orange Walk is in full swing, while another sees the young gang claim to have had holy visions in a chapel, with a statue of the Virgin Mary apparently "smirking" at them.

The situations are amusingly set up, but it's the rapid-fire gags, often near-the-knuckle, which had me creasing myself as well as the individual characterisations themselves. I don't know who my favourite is amongst them but the central character of Erin, with her teenage crushes, literary pretensions and down-to-earth sensibilities probably shades it, although the hormonally imbalanced Michelle, uber-enthusiastic Clare and ditzy Orla and doormat James run her close and all get their share of the good lines on offer, not to mention their dysfunctional parents and grandparents too.

All the episodes I've watched were of the same high standard with the only difficulty sometimes being the machine-gun-like Northern Irish delivery which can be a bit hard to pick up sometimes. That said I'm getting more than enough laughs from what I can see and hear so I'm not complaining too much.

To all those many millions more people currently watching the appallingly bad "Mrs Brown's Boys" do yourself a favour and switch to this immediately.

Have now watched all three episodes and simply think its wonderful writing and acting . I served in Derry 83-84 and can assure all , the humour of this show is spot on as with the acting , trust me , iv P checked more people in Derry than I care to recall however there humour never ceased to amaze me , specially the young ladies . Great show and wonderful people portrayed in difficult times .

A thoroughly enjoyable and hilarious addition to channel 4's comedic offerings. The extreme success of 'Derry Girls' lies deeply rooted in the effective well-rounded development of the main and recurring characters. With all four of the Derry Girls being totally antithetical to each other, the show seemingly appeals to a wide and diverse audience without losing sight of its purpose as a comedy. Set in 1990s Derry, McGee intricately intertwines the treacherous and realistic political undertones as an effective backdrop to successfully juxtapose the comedic on-goings in the lives of the core characters. It should win lots of awards.

Derry Girls is one of the best new comedies I have seen on TV in recent times. There's great chemistry between the lead characters who are all likable and have their own hilarious personal traits. The supporting cast are also excellent, Grandad Joe in particular I thought was very funny. I laughed a lot throughout the series and it also handled some sensitive subjects very well. I am glad that it's already been confirmed we will have a series 2!

This was an absolute TREAT. I did not know what to expect when I started watching this but after 2 or 3 scenes, I knew I was gonna binge watch this. I dont feel like The Troubles is a historical event that has been touched on very often in popular culture. That´s why I found it so refreshing to see it in a comedic way through the eyes of Derry teenagers.

The writing was spot on, you could never tell what was going to happen or what someone was going to say. Everything was just surprisingly hilarious all the time. If you can overlook the fact that the actors who are playing the teenagers are around ten years older than they should be, then you´ll find their performances convincing. Some of them overacted sometimes (Erin´s character is a little unnatural) but since the whole show is a bit nutty it kind of works.