Nighty Night
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Nighty Night is a six-part BBC Television comedy/drama with a black edge to its humour; shown on BBC THREE and later BBC TWO from January 2004. Nighty Night was written by and stars Julia Davis (Big Train, Human Remains, Jam) as Jill Tyrrell, an arch-manipulator and who takes advantage of the well-meaning people around her.
Plot
In the first scene of the first episode she sits in a doctor's office with her husband Terry (played by Kevin Eldon - Fist Of Fun, Big Train, Jam) and they have just been told the test results. Jill teary-eyed and with her head in her hands exclaims "Why does everything have to happen to ME!" Her husband turns to her comfortingly, and says, "Look love, it'll be OK. It's really not that bad. It is me who's got the cancer!"
Immediately after her husband begins cancer treatment, Jill goes to a computer dating agency to find another man, seemingly happy to know her husband will probably die.
Jill uses the status of cancer widow to gain her maximum sympathy (despite Terry being still alive), from her employees who work in her suburban salon and from a quiet well-to-do couple who Jills befriends that live across the street from her. Don (Angus Deayton - One Foot In The Grave, KYTV) is a family doctor and his wife is Cath (Rebecca Front - Brass Eye, The Day Today, Knowing Me, Knowing You), a wheelchair-bound multiple sclerosis sufferer. Jill eventually moves in with Don and Cath and tries to break up their marriage by trying to sleep with Don, all the while playing the sympathy card with Cath.
Jill occasionally visits her husband in hospital, who is responding well to cancer treatment, but Jill often puts her own spin on good news from the doctors to leave Terry with the impression that he is really dying.
Cast and crew
Other cast members include Mark Gatiss (of The League of Gentlemen fame) as an admirer who Jill meets through the dating agency; Ruth Jones (East Is East) plays hairdresser Linda and Michael Fenton Stevens (KYTV, People Like Us) as the vicar who unwittingly presides over the fake funeral that Jill organises for Terry.
The series won a Banff Award and Davis won a Royal Television Society Award for her performance and got a highly positive reception from TV critics. As of August 2004, a second series is currently being written.
External links
- BBC Three - Nighty Night (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/tv/nightynight.shtml)
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- Guardian Unlimited interview with Julia Davis, Dec 17 2004 (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1375897,00.html)