BBC Two has set its core cast for Boy Meets Girl, a new comedy the channel is billing as the UK’s first transgender sitcom. Rebecca Root, Harry Hepple and Denise Welch will lead the six-part series.
Root plays Judy, a woman in her forties, with Hepple as Leo, a younger man who falls for her, and Welch as Pam, Leo’s mother. The series follows Leo, whose miserable day takes a turn when, after a blind date stands him up, he meets Judy and finds himself smitten despite the age gap between them, much to his mother’s unease. Janine Duvitski, Nigel Betts, Lizzie Roper and Jonny Dixon round out the cast.
The show grew out of the BBC’s Trans Comedy Award, a search for the best comedy script dealing with transgender lives. It was created by Elliott Kerrigan, who writes alongside Simon Carlyle and Andrew Mettam, and is produced by Tiger Aspect. With Root, herself a transgender actress, in the lead, it marks a first for a mainstream UK sitcom.