Nighty Night

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Nighty Night
Nighty Night DVD cover
Genre	Dark comedy
Running time	30 minutes
Creator(s)	Julia Davis
Starring	Julia Davis Angus Deayton Rebecca Front Kevin Eldon Mark Gatiss Ruth Jones Michael Fenton Stevens Felicity Montagu
Country of origin	UK
Original channel	BBC Three, BBC Two
Original run	January 6, 2004–October 11, 2005 could possibly carry on
No. of episodes	12
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

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 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.

On 2006-06-14 it was announced that Sex and the City creator Darren Star will write and executive produce the US version, which has been commissioned for a pilot script. Steve Coogan and Henry Normal, founders of production company Baby Cow, will co-executive produce.^{[citation needed]}

1 Plot
- 1.1 First Series
- 1.2 Second Series
2 Cast
3 Critical reception
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] 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 Jill 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 has multiple sclerosis and often uses a wheelchair. Jill eventually moves in with Don and Cath, flirting with their son David and trying to break up their marriage and sleep with Don, all the while playing the sympathy card with Cath.

Jill occasionally visits her husband in hospital, where he 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.

Jill dresses as Don's former mistress, Sandra to try and grab his attention and prepares a meal for him while Cath is out. Don does not know anything about this and is pleasantly surprised, later on Jill bends down and gets stuck and asks for Don's help. Don pulls her to him to get her up from the ground, just then Cath enters and gets the wrong impression, leading to Don's becoming very irritated.

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 treating him like that only 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.

Cath and Don later put forward their plans to move to Hopperton, but when Jill hears of this she throws a farewell coffee evening for Cath and Don; Jill decides to make it more wild by performing a pole dance with the locals in the house watching! The Hopperton Nuns are also at the house and are disgusted with Jill's antics. Meanwhile Don is extremely drunk at the coffee evening and Cath's had enough, she tells him that she is moving to Hopperton on her own; then she heads for Hopperton, leaving Don confused. During the party Linda sees Terry and thinks it's his ghost trying to tell her to confess all, so Linda tells Jill about her affair and is struck down by Jill. After the party Jill goes back to hers and smothers Terry with a cushion just as a confused, tired Don enters Jill's house. There Don Vomits and opens a door and finds Jill lying on her bed, Don just wanting to lie down and to tired to be bothered falls into Jill's arms on her bed.

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.

[edit] 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, accidentally 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 lodge's receptionist) and gets a job at the farm.

Series Two, although at some points being darker and more risqué 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.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

Jill Tyrell : Julia Davis
Don Cole : Angus Deayton
Cathy Cole : Rebecca Front
Terry Tyrell : Kevin Eldon (2004)
Glen Bulb : Mark Gatiss
Linda : Ruth Jones
Reverend Gordon : Michael Fenton Stevens
Sue : Felicity Montagu

[edit] 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