n the spring of 2020, as the country entered lockdown for the first time, sisters Kat Sadler and Lizzie Davidson had a long-overdue catchup on the phone. They both had terrible news to share: Davidson had accrued £20,000 worth of debt while Sadler had experienced a “complete mental health crash” and been sectioned after attempting to end her life twice.
Did the pair respond to each other with solemn compassion? Not exactly. In fact they instantly decided it was “terrifying but also hilarious that we’d ended up in these positions in our lives,” says Sadler. “We’re not serious people, so even the attempt to be serious on the phone telling each other what had gone on, we just couldn’t do it.” Davidson agrees: “We always find the absurdity in everything – that’s our coping mechanism.”
It didn’t end there. Sadler, a standup turned TV joke writer, immediately started work on a script inspired by their conversation, and three years later it has become the sitcom Such Brave Girls – hands down the funniest British comedy of the year. It stars Sadler as twentysomething Josie (nervy, indecisive, people-pleasing, recently sectioned and coming to terms with her sexuality) and Davidson as her younger sister Billie (aggressive, vain, dangerously obsessed with her on-off boyfriend Nicky). It is pitch-black, hysterically funny and brutally unsentimental – a zillennial Nighty Night.
A week before broadcast, the pair – who are from Sutton in London – are practically vibrating with anticipation. “I sit down every morning and click through to next week on the TV planner to see the name of the show come up. I’m such a loser,” says Davidson (the sisters have different surnames because Sadler is a stage name). The filming process was similarly nerve-racking. “Before every table read we would call each other crying and panicking,” says Davidson, still slightly breathless. “We had such bad impostor syndrome.”
Neither had any real prior screen acting experience. Sadler, who is 29, had carved out a career writing for TV shows including The Mash Report and Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back. Davidson, 26, had been performing in the interactive children’s show Shrek’s Adventure on London’s South Bank, where she continually encountered “abusive children who really try to upset you. So any hate that’s coming is going to wash over me,” she deadpans. (Inspired by this, Billie works as a witch at the bleak-looking Kidz Cauldron.)
