It’s set in a south Bristol call centre, features shots of its star dancing down Totterdown’s stepped streets and features a really clever trick that will have you re-examining the way you talk to customer services people on the phone forever.
It’s Ruby Speaking, which is set to be the next big sitcom on ITV starting next month - and it’s about as Bristol as you can get.
The show stars Bedminster’s own Jayde Adams in the title role, with an ensemble supporting cast of loveable and quirky oddballs including Bristolian actor Joe Sims, Coronation Street star Katherine Kelly - she played Becky McDonald on the cobbles for six years - as well as a pair of young breakout Bristol stars who are actually in danger of stealing the show.
Read next: Bristol's Jayde Adams on new ITV sitcom that's so South Bristol it's banned the bridge
Ruby Speaking - or at least the first two episodes - had their public premiere at the Watershed, and revealed the programme to be a classic of its kind - a sitcom with a strong lead, sharp and genuinely funny script, but above all, characters that the viewers will fall in love with and root for.
The first two episodes set the scene - this looks set to be one of those slow-burner series which holds its audience with genuine warmth rather than outlandish plot twists or cliff hangers.
Ruby (Jayde Adams) lives alone in a ground floor flat in Totterdown, has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend, and is in perilous danger of losing her job at Hellocom, the call centre where she works as part of a small team, because she spends her time helping customers who phone up with problems, rather than trying to sell them more expensive TV and broadband packages when they do call.
Top of the sales chart is Tom, a football shirt-wearing loud lad (Joe Sims) who, according to the actor himself, remains ‘just on the right side of the toxic masculinity line’. There’s a new starter on our first day, a young girl called Melons (brilliantly played by young Bristol actor Keira Lester), a world weary student Cameron (Jamal Franklin) and a quiet and nice team leader Mark (Sam Swainsbury).
The arrival of blunt and buzzword-spouting boss-from-hell Vicky (Corrie’s Katherine Kelly) puts Jayde’s future in doubt, as she struggles to be the salesperson her new boss demands.
There will, given it’s the second big prime time mainstream channel to be obviously set in Bristol, be inevitable comparisons with The Outlaws, but they are chalk and cheese. Stephen Merchant’s comedy crime drama was an expansive and ambitious caper, this is a much more gentle, traditional sitcom more inspired by Victoria Wood than Guy Ritchie.
And while The Outlaws grandstanded Bristol as its canvas, with drones over the Suspension Bridge and boat chases on the Floating Harbour, Ruby Speaking's Bristol is much more real - a walk home in a dark park and a stumble out of bed into a terraced street. They even banned that kind of Visit Bristol look in the cutaways.
There is one thing the two shows do have in common though, apart from the Bristol setting, chatter about Park Street and some actual proper genuine Bristolian accents. Both have you rooting for the characters - you want to know what happens to them and you want it to turn out right. Making the audience care about a sitcom character is not as easy as it sounds - many have tried and failed, but Ruby Speaking does it.
It’s like a hug of a programme, a warm embrace from a witty but cuddly friend. It is sharp and modern, and gets its humour from the funny one-liners, but also the more outlandish characters that everywoman Ruby has to navigate around.
As well as the boss from hell Vicky, there’s training boss Ellie (Amy Leigh Hickman), who calls everyone ‘b*tch’ as a term of endearment, has Bristol’s most impractical but expensive set of nails and the kind of bored self-assuredness that can be found in a thousand young women being all judgey as they queue outside Popworld or Pryzm on a Friday night.
And then there’s office security guard Craig, a roadman in a shirt who many from outside of Bristol might think is too much of a caricature to be real, if they’d only head to Stokes Croft on a Saturday evening. If Ruby Speaking is as big a success as it should be, he will be the one who gets his own break-out series, which is quite remarkable when you consider the young lad who plays Craig, Dan Hiscox, is a chef from Pucklechurch who answered Jayde Adams’ open call out for the show.
Ruby Speaking is a laid back, funny, clever but not pushy, warm and friendly show, which viewers need to give time to warm up and fall in love with. Let’s hope they do exactly that.
Read next:
- BBC The Outlaws cast spotted filming at Bristol Harbour ahead of third season
- The 'co-living' boom about to hit Bristol - solution or problem?
- South Bristol boxing legend says 'it's nuts' that new apartments on site of his old gym are named after him
- Jayde Adams' new ITV sitcom casts two unknown Bristolian actors including chef from Pucklechurch
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