Funny Woman (Sky Max) is a little bit Mrs Maisel and a little bit Carry On. Over six episodes, this charming adaptation of the popular 2014 Nick Hornby novel Funny Girl has taken its new, more mature name and blossomed into a colourful romp through the swinging 60s. Gemma Arterton is Barbara Parker, a beauty queen from the rock factory who loves radio comedy and having a laugh with her dad. She may be in line to marry the best-looking butcher in Blackpool, but the trouble is that nobody is interested in what she has to say. “I am here, if you want to ask me anything?” she suggests to a local reporter, after she has just been crowned Miss Blackpool Belle, 1964. “No thanks, I’ll just make the rest up,” he says, sleazily, like the good fictional TV journalist that he is.
If this is the kind of world she is living in, then Barbara is having none of it. In the way that modern series about bygone eras often do, Funny Woman wages a gratifying, ahead-of-its-time war against sexism on all fronts. Barbara spreads her wings and flees to London, where she hopes to become a performer of some kind. She watches Lucille Ball on the television at the launderette, and dreams about her future. “I’d love to get paid to muck about,” she says, wistfully. It isn’t long before fate intervenes, though having the face of Gemma Arterton probably helps her along the way.
