Such Brave Girls is a British television sitcom about a dysfunctional single-parent family created by Kat Sadler for BBC Three. It stars Sadler, with Louise Brealey and Lizzie Davidson. It is directed by Simon Bird and produced by A24 with Various Artists Ltd. The first series was released on 22 November 2023. The second series ran from 3 July 2025 with all episodes released on BBC iPlayer.
Sadler has described the series as being a âÂÂfamily sitcom about traumaâÂÂ, but that itâÂÂs also about âÂÂbeing narcissistic losers who are pathetically obsessed with what people think about us.âÂÂ
Deb, a forty-something single mother, is trying to rebuild her life with her boyfriend Dev. Her two adult daughters, Josie and Billie, still live with her and complicate her life. She wants them to be married off as soon as possible.
The older sibling, Josie, is navigating mental illness and her sexual identity. She is engaged to Seb. Her young sister, Billie, is in toxic relationships.
The series was created and written by Kat Sadler, who also stars. It is directed by Simon Bird and was produced for Various Artists Ltd and A24 by Catherine Gosling Fuller, with Phil Clarke, Jack Bayles, Piers Wenger and Sadler as executive producers. It was commissioned after a successful 2021 pilot episode.
Sadler appears in the series alongside her real life sister Lizzie Davidson, and they play sisters on the show. Sadler told The Times that Davidson read the drafts and acted as her âÂÂsense check ⦠telling me if IâÂÂve gone too madâÂÂ. She described their characters of Josie and Billie as âÂÂnot us, but they are certainly inspired by bits of us ⦠we have taken some of the worst aspects of ourselvesâÂÂ. She said that their own mother had seen it âÂÂand laughed in all the right placesâÂÂ.
Bird wrote to Sadler asking to direct the series after watching the 2021 pilot episode, with Sadler and Bird agreeing to keep the series as a comedy rather than veer towards comedy-drama.
A second six-part series was commissioned in May 2024.
Filming began in May 2023.
Filming took place across Merseyside with filming locations including The Wirral and Knowsley.
The first series started airing in the United Kingdom on BBC Three on 22 November 2023, with all episodes released on BBC iPlayer the same day. It was available in the United States on Hulu from 15 December 2023.
The second series started airing in the United Kingdom on BBC Three on 3 July 2025, with all episodes released on BBC iPlayer the same day.
For series one, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating based on 21 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Painfully funny and sometimes just downright painful, Such Brave Girls is a spiky showcase for its trio of stars." For series two, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating based on 11 critic reviews.
Lucy Mangan inThe Guardian described the show as âÂÂproperly brutal and properly funnyâÂÂ, saying that she found âÂÂparticular joy in seeing a woman-led, female-written show that doesnâÂÂt pull its punchesâÂÂ. She added that it was âÂÂbrave â singular, fresh, scabrous and unflinching â but still â or, rather, as a result â hilarious.âÂÂ
Steve Bennett for Chortle gave the show four stars, commenting that âÂÂelements of pure sitcomâ combine with an âÂÂearthy, nuanced realism of the dysfunctional charactersâ with SadlerâÂÂs âÂÂunique comic sensibilitiesâ combining with an âÂÂadmirable reluctance to take serious issues seriouslyâ which âÂÂmakes for an impressively different series.âÂÂ
The Big Issue described the series as "one of the funniest British comedies in years."