Telly Talk: Girl talk

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, Jessica Hynes and Simon Pegg wrote a little comedy series called Spaced. It did rather well. Since then Simon Pegg has gone on to co-write and co-star in what is now known as the Cornetto trilogy (the third part, World’s End, due out this summer) as well as pop up in various other flicks, including most recently the Star Trek franchise, being a particlarly high pitched Mr Scott. Jessica Hynes got married, had a family, and then featured in some hardly small themselves movies to do with a certain boy wizard with a scar, as well as in the multi award-winning Olympics satire 2012. Not too shabby. So with that thinking-person’s comedy calibre in mind, I was intrigued when I heard that Jessica Hynes was writing and starring in a BBC4 comedy about the women’s suffrage movement.

It’s worth taking note that this is for BBC4, that’s not a typo. You know what that means, and you don’t need me to spell it out. Suffice to say, it’s different from BBC3.

Up The Women is a period sitcom, setting the tone nicely with a mostly female ensemble, the trigger for the introduction of the topic of the Women’s Suffrage Movement being when Mrs Margaret Unwin (Hynes) travels to London for her annual pilgrimage to her mother-in-law only to get caught up in a rally at Hyde Park. A clever and educated woman, but nervous with it, Margaret returns empassioned to transform the Banbury Intricate Craft Circle into the Banbury Intricate Craft Circle Politely Requests Women’s Suffrage. However, on this matter she is not without opposition.

“you’ve got to have proper chutzpah to carry these convictions off, which Front has”

Now, whoever thought to cast Rebecca Front as the matriarch that would leave Miss Haversham shaking in her boots had a stroke of genius. With proclamations of; “We don’t need electricity!” and; “does your husband know you’re cavorting with skirted anarchists?”, you’ve got to have proper chutzpah to carry these convictions off, which Front has. So much more formidable than she was when helping to run the country in The Thick Of It, Front’s dowager is almost enough to make a modern woman question whether really a massive rosette and a nice slice of Victoria sponge really is better than campaigning for equality.

And here’s another thing – anecdotally I am hearing more and more that ‘feminist’ has become a dirty word with young women of the 21st century. Perfect timing then for something accessible and also clever to remind us all quite how far we’ve come and what respect we owe to those women upon whose shoulders we now stand.

I do love quite how clever Margaret Unwin really is, a great starting point for the series’ story arc. She hasn’t told her husband about her recent suffrage epiphany as he’s been in a funk ever since Nietzsche died. Her explanation of Nietzsche as, “a bit like shock-headed Peter, but a bit crosser” is priceless. Add to that her full explanation of electricity, light bulbs and Madame Bovary and she’s a shining light in feminism just waiting to be switched on. The rest of the company are equally well crafted, and waiting in the wing to bloom, but this is clearly a bit of a passion of Hynes’. It’s rather glorious to see it shine through.
Up The Women, BBC4, Thursday 30 May 2013