‘Comedy brings joy and that brings people together’
Comedy writer Lisa Mcgee is the creator of Channel 4’s hit series Derry Girls and is proud to show that women are funny.
I’ve always loved telling stories. As a child, I was obsessed with Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote and I wanted to become a writer because she was one. My stories would get read out in class and make everyone laugh, and I’d put on plays in my backyard, which I’d force my friends to be part of and make my whole street come and watch.
After school, I studied drama at Queen’s University Belfast. I was a hopeless actor, but it allowed me to write plays. During the 1990s, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity in Northern Ireland, so after I graduated, I set up a theatre company called Sneaky with two friends. We worked second jobs to pay the actors, so we never made money; we were just desperate for someone to see our work.
I had a stroke of luck when an Irish producer saw one of my plays. He sent my script to agents in London and I signed with an agency, before moving to the National Theatre. They paid me to write what I wanted and I had an office next to author Mark Haddon. I was only 23 and, coming from a working-class background, it felt surreal.
I went on to write a drama called Raw, which was broadcast on Irish TV for five years, and for shows such as The White Queen and Indian Summers. When my first sitcom, London Irish, didn’t get recommissioned by Channel 4, they asked me to write something else. I came up with Derry Girls. It was going to be a crime drama, then it started to mirror my life growing up in Derry during The Troubles.
The first night it aired, I was too scared to look at people’s reactions on Twitter. My husband, Tobias Beer, who’s also a writer and actor, checked and said, ‘I think you’re going to be okay.’ Channel 4 recommissioned it for a second season the next day as 2.5m people tuned in to watch the episode. For me, the amazing thing was that people were talking about my home, but I was equally proud that I’d created a comedy with a group of women.
It is tough being a female comedy writer; you either have to be thick-skinned or have the right people around you. I’m lucky that I work alongside two amazing female executive producers who fight my corner. There is a long way to go until women get equal screen time, but we’ve won this battle against the idea that ‘women aren’t funny’.
During the lockdowns, not much changed for me because I usually work from home. Tobias and I have been writing a new thriller. The big difference is we’ve had our two boys, who are five and one, keeping us on our toes.
One show I’ve been obsessed with is This Country. I think Daisy May Cooper is the funniest person on TV; the faces she pulls leave me in tears. Larry David and Michaela Coel are brilliant, too, but my all-time favourite comedy series is Seinfeld. Elaine Benes was the first female comedy character I fell in love with. There’s something very comforting about comedy. You can watch the same thing over and over and you feel as if you know the characters. Just talking about a show with someone can leave you in stitches, and that’s what we need. Comedy brings joy and that brings people together.
There’s something comforting about comedy