Nighty Night is a BBC black comedy television sitcom starring Julia Davis. It was first broadcast on 6 January 2004 on BBC Three.
Notorious for its dark humour, the show follows narcissistic, sociopathic hairdresser Jill Tyrell (Julia Davis) alongside her dim-witted assistant Linda (Ruth Jones). Jill learns that her husband Terry (Kevin Eldon) has cancer. She uses this to manipulate new neighbour Cathy Cole (Rebecca Front), who has multiple sclerosis, and her husband Don (Angus Deayton), a doctor and the man with whom Jill becomes increasingly obsessed.
Writing
Julia Davis was the creator and writer for the series. She has cited Ingmar Bergman and Abigail's Party as influences.
The second series was initially proposed as a Christmas special, but then developed into a full series.' Mark Gatiss described the second series as "broader" and "filthier".
Characters
The character of Jill was inspired by a mixture of things, including: the character Beverly from Human Remains; She told The Guardian that "Most of Jill is an amalgam of women I've seen or worked with in the West Country".
Ruth Jones' character, Linda, was also a development of one of her characters in Human Remains, Linda's asthma was informed by much of the cast's experience of asthma. the latter includes the cul-de-sac where Jill and the Coles live.
The second series was filmed in Bude, Cornwall.
Supporting cast
- Kitty Fitzgerald as Joy (season 1)
- Ralph Brown as Jacques (season 2)
- Miranda Hart as Beth (season 2)
- Llewella Gideon as Floella Umbagabe (season 2)
- Loui Batley as Natalie (season 2)
- Marc Wootton as Gary Furze (season 1) and Dennis (season 2)
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. It also received a nomination for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Situation Comedy in 2005. The series won Britain's Best New TV Comedy of 2004. The Times called it "a blistering wall of superbly unredeemed cruelty that manages to trample over every social convention in a pair of cheap stilettos."
In viewership, while no data were reported for the first series, the second series began strongly with 616,000 viewers - BBC Three's second-highest rated show of the week. Ratings slipped sharply from thereon, however, with the final two episodes registering fewer than 400,000 viewers and falling outside of the channel's top 10 shows both weeks.
The series has had a big queer following.
In 2012, George Michael, who is a fan of Nighty Night, woke up from a coma after having pneumonia and found himself speaking in Jill's accent.