‘I’m so fucking sick of peace!” And so, another of Michelle’s banging lines launched the third and best series of Derry Girls. While a second ceasefire was called, the girls (and yes, James, that includes you) spent the summer of 1997 making a “really quite shite” documentary about growing up Catholic in Northern Ireland. Ah, well. Maybe it wasn’t too late to make “a couple of fake videos for You’ve Been Framed” instead. Anyway, on to more pressing matters: GCSE results! Cue Bizarre Inc screeching “Why waste your time? / You know you’re gonna be mine.” Let the final series of Lisa McGee’s masterpiece begin!
Derry Girls is so tonally perfect, its farce so exquisitely timed, the 90s nostalgia so flawlessly pitched, the essence of teenage girlhood so lovingly distilled, that the impulse to relay each scene line by line, in the merciful-Jesus-kill-me-now manner of Uncle Colm, is impossible to resist. My intro only covers the first 60 seconds of series three – that’s how high the gag rate is. One has to pay the kind of close attention previously reserved for Line of Duty interrogations to catch every joke. Laugh too hard at the chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (played by Liam Neeson!) telling the wains that there are in fact three Catholics in the force if you include the lovely Jewish fella down Ballymena station, and you’re in danger of missing the epiphany that Sister Michael’s full name is … Sister George Michael.
