Nighty Night

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Nighty Night is a BBC Television comedy/drama with a black edge to its humour; the first series was shown on BBC Three and later BBC Two from January 2004. It returned for a second series on BBC Three from 2005-09-06. It airs in the US on the Oh! Oxygen Network.

Nighty Night is 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.

The closing theme tune is an excerpt from the spaghetti western My Name is Nobody, composed by the renowned Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.

Contents

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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First Series

In the first scene of the first episode, Jill 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 "I mean why, WHY ME!" Her husband turns to her comfortingly, and says, "Jill. Lets keep this in perspective. It's me that'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), who is wheelchair-bound with multiple sclerosis. 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. When Jill finds out Terry has been cured she takes him to a hospice and tells all her friends that he has died, resulting in a twisted funeral where Jill gets all the attention.

Meanwhile Don and Cath's relationship has hit the rocks; Don starts drinking heavily, and it's the last straw when she finds him having a romantic dinner with Jill who acts innocently about it. She packs up and leaves allowing Jill to fully move in with Don even though he isn't interested in the slightest.

Running out of excuses for the ever curious Terry, Jill is forced to take him home and treats him badly but says that she is only treating him like that to make him better. Jill meets a rich simpleton by the name of Glen through the dating agency (he describes his personality as 'Scottish') and she pretends to fall in love with him even though she hates him. She announces to everyone that she and Glen are to get married right away.

Don becomes suspicious when he sees Terry wondering around outside and Jill decides that Terry must die. She explains to him that she is going to put him out of his misery and then suffocates him with a pillow over his face. When things start to spiral out of control and Jill realises she is about to be found out, she confesses everything to Glen at the Vicar's kitchen. She puts poison in some cups of angel delight and shares them with the Vicar and Glen. She encourages the Vicar to eat some and he drops dead. She then tells Glen that if he loves her he would agree to take the blame for Terry's death. He agrees and phones up the police to admit the murder and also the murder of the vicar. When he has, she shares the angel delight with Glen, but only after making him eat it first. After he's done, she exclaims "i'm not really hungry".

Glen takes the blame for the Vicar and Terry's deaths whilst Jill gets away to pursue Don.

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Second Series

Having framed Glen for the events of series one, Jill still infatuated with Don pursues him and Cath who have gone to Cornwall and are trying to get the marriage to work at a health centre called The Trees. Jill and Linda, her half-witted employee who admitted to having a fling with Terry, set off to cornwall accidently running over a black woman by the name of Floella Umbagabe who just so happens to be starting a job at the health centre. Jill poses as Floella (with a hilarious encounter with the lodges receptionist) and gets a job at the farm.

Series Two, although at some points being darker and more risque than Series One, didn't achieve the same success upon first airing on BBC Three. It was widely seen as having eschewed the subtle humour of the first series in favour of more outrageous 'gross-out' set pieces in the style of Little Britain. Template:Endspoilers

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Cast

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Critical reception

The first 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. See also the IMDB's Nighty Night Awards page.

  • "An exquisitely vile comic creation [...] The Office might have popularised the comedy of embarrassment, but Nighty Night has moved it on." [1] - The Guardian
  • "a blistering wall of superbly unredeemed cruelty that manages to trample over every social convention in a pair of cheap stilettos." [2] - The Times
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External links

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