Such Brave Girls

Deb, a forty-something single mother, is trying to rebuild her life with her boyfriend Dev. Her two adult daughters, Josie and Billie, still live with her and complicate her life. She wants them to be married off as soon as possible.

The older sibling, Josie, is navigating mental illness and her sexual identity. She is engaged to Seb. Her young sister, Billie, is in toxic relationships.

• Kat Sadler as Josie Johnson
• Louise Brealey as Deb Johnson
• Lizzie Davidson as Billie Johnson
• Freddie Meredith as Seb
• Paul Bazely as Dev Wilson
• Jude Mack as Sid (series 1)
• Sam Buchanan as Nicky
• Carla Woodcock as Bianca
• Amy Trigg as Claire
• Keith Evans as Police Officer (series 2)

The series was created and written by Kat Sadler, who also stars. It is directed by Simon Bird and was produced for Various Artists Ltd and A24 by Catherine Gosling Fuller, with Phil Clarke, Jack Bayles, Piers Wenger and Sadler as executive producers.^[3] It was commissioned after a successful 2021 pilot episode.^[4]

Sadler appears in the series alongside her real life sister Lizzie Davidson, and they play sisters on the show. Sadler told The Times that Davidson read the drafts and acted as her “sense check … telling me if I’ve gone too mad”. She described their characters of Josie and Billie as “not us, but they are certainly inspired by bits of us … we have taken some of the worst aspects of ourselves”. She said that their own mother had seen it “and laughed in all the right places”.^[5]

Bird wrote to Sadler asking to direct the series after watching the 2021 pilot episode, with Sadler and Bird agreeing to keep the series as a comedy rather than veer towards comedy-drama.^[6]

A second six-part series was commissioned in May 2024.^[7]

The first series started airing in the United Kingdom on BBC Three on 22 November 2023, with all episodes released on BBC iPlayer the same day.^[10] It was available in the United States on Hulu from 15 December 2023.^[11]

The second series started airing in the United Kingdom on BBC Three on 3 July 2025, with all episodes released on BBC iPlayer the same day.^[12]

For series one, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating based on 21 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Painfully funny and sometimes just downright painful, Such Brave Girls is a spiky showcase for its trio of stars."^[13] For series two, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating based on 11 critic reviews.^[14]

Lucy Mangan in The Guardian described the show as “properly brutal and properly funny”, saying that she found “particular joy in seeing a woman-led, female-written show that doesn’t pull its punches”. She added that it was “brave – singular, fresh, scabrous and unflinching – but still – or, rather, as a result – hilarious.”^[15]

Steve Bennett for Chortle gave the show four stars, commenting that “elements of pure sitcom” combine with an “earthy, nuanced realism of the dysfunctional characters” with Sadler’s “unique comic sensibilities” combining with an “admirable reluctance to take serious issues seriously” which “makes for an impressively different series.”^[16]

The Big Issue described the series as "one of the funniest British comedies in years."^[17]