''Out of Her Mind'' is a 2020 BBC Two sitcom created by, written by, and starring

Sara Pascoe Sara Patricia Pascoe (born 22 May 1981) is an English actress, comedian and writer. She has appeared on television programmes including ''8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown'' for Channel 4, '' QI'' for BBC and '' Taskmaster'' for the digital chan ...

. It follows a fictionalised Sara Pascoe, who had an abortion when she was young and was left at the altar by a former partner, as her sister becomes engaged. The programme features heavy usage of the protagonist talking to camera and breaking the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

, and its subject matter relates to Pascoe's books ''Animal'' and '' Sex Power Money'', which are about sexuality and biology. The show received mostly positive reception.

Production

The series was produced by Stolen Picture. It was commissioned following a 2018 pilot, ''Sara Pascoe Vs Monogamy''. The executive producers were Pascoe,

Nick Frost Nicholas Jonathan Frost (born 28 March 1972) is a British actor, author, comedian, painter, producer and screenwriter. He has appeared in the ''Three Flavours Cornetto'' trilogy of films, consisting of ''Shaun of the Dead'' (2004), ''Hot Fuzz ...

, Miles Ketley and

Simon Pegg Simon John Pegg (né Beckingham; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ''Spaced'' (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. H ...

. Ben and Chris Blaine directed the series. The series was announced in August 2019. It was written and filmed at

Ealing Studios Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever s ...

before the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

caused a lockdown in Britain, but released during the pandemic. The cast were announced in March 2020. The series aired on BBC Two, premiering on 20 October 2020. The choice to cast

Jack Gleeson Jack Gleeson (born 20 May 1992) is an Irish actor who played Joffrey Baratheon on the HBO television series ''Game of Thrones'' (2011–2014). Following this role, Gleeson took a hiatus from acting, but has since taken part in independent th ...

as the ghost of Pascoe's abortion was based on advice Pascoe was given to "choose an actor that everyone wishes was dead", following his role as the sadistic

Joffrey Baratheon Joffrey Baratheon is a fictional character in the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' series of epic fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin, and its HBO television adaptation ''Game of Thrones''. Introduced in 1996's ''A Game of Thrones' ...

in '' Game of Thrones''.

Cast

as Sara Pascoe * Fiona Button as Lucy, Sara's sister *

Juliet Stevenson Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, (born 30 October 1956) is an English actor of stage and screen. She is known for her role in the film ''Truly, Madly, Deeply'' (1991), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leadi ...

as Carol, Sara's mother * Cariad Lloyd as Scoopy, Sara's friend * Tom Stuart as Stefan

Episodes

Analysis

The show's subject matter—that of sexual relationships and biology—overlaps with Pascoe's two books, ''Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body'' and '' Sex Power Money''. It also relates to her

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

series ''The Modern Monkey''. The style in which the woman protagonist talks to the camera is similar to that of British comedies including ''

Chewing Gum Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/ plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its t ...

'', ''

Fleabag ''Fleabag'' is a British comedy-drama television series created and written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, based on her one-woman show first performed in 2013 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was originally produced by Two Brothers Pictures for d ...

'', ''

I Hate Suzie ''I Hate Suzie'' is a British dark comedy drama television series created by Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper. It was produced by Bad Wolf in association with Sky Studios, with Prebble serving as showrunner. All episodes were written by Prebbl ...

'', '' Miranda'' and '' This Way Up''. Hugo Rifkind of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' believed that ''Out of Her Mind'' went further than these shows in its breaking of the

, calling it "a commentary on sitcoms". The programme employs tropes before deconstructing them and challenging the audience about their usage. The protagonist shares her name with the actor who plays her. Another case of a sitcom in which a comedian plays a character named after herself is '' The Duchess'', a 2020 Netflix series starring

Katherine Ryan Katherine Louisa Ryan (born 30 June 1983) is a Canadian comedian, writer, presenter, and actress based in the United Kingdom. She has appeared on many British panel shows, including as a regular team captain on ''8 Out of 10 Cats'' and '' Never ...

Reception

Ben Dowell of ''The Times'' gave the show a rating of four stars out of five, praising it as a "rollerblading ringmaster of confessional comedy". In a four star review for ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'', Helen Brown found it "punchy and clever". Lucy Mangan of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' also rated it four out of five stars, reviewing that the show improved after a "slightly shaky start". Mangan wrote that it "evolves into something delicately intricate, clever and – by the end – moving". Iain Leggat of ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'' similar found that the show improved after a "sluggish" pilot, praising the cast and Pascoe as "most at ease" when "dissecting the dynamics of sexual politics directly to camera". Rifkind praised the programme as "self-knowing, self-mocking and very clever", summarising that it is "deceptively intricate and sometimes quite brilliant too". In contrast, Euan Ferguson of ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' criticised the show as "relentlessly, scattily modernist" and "very dated", being "mystified" by it. However, Ferguson praised the supporting cast. Charlotte Cripps of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' reviewed the show negatively, finding that it differs from shows with similar premises "because you don't see yourself in" the protagonist and that its cynical message "wears thin".

References

External links

* * * {{British Comedy Guide, tv, out_of_her_mind 2020s British comedy-drama television series 2020s British sex comedy television series 2020 British television series debuts BBC comedy-drama television shows English-language television shows