Nighty Night

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Nighty Night

Series title card
Format Black comedy
Created by Julia Davis
Starring Julia Davis
Angus Deayton
Rebecca Front
Kevin Eldon
Mark Gatiss
Ruth Jones
Michael Fenton Stevens
Felicity Montagu
Country of origin UK
No. of episodes 12
Production
Running time 30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel BBC Three, BBC Two
Original run January 6, 2004 – October 11, 2005
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Nighty Night is a BBC Television sitcom with a black edge to its humour. The first series was shown on BBC Three and later on BBC Two from January 2004. It returned for a second series on BBC Three in 2005. It airs in the US on the Oxygen network. In Australia, Series one was aired on ABC, however the public broadcaster said it received complaints and the second series was aired on SBS.

Nighty Night is written by and stars Julia Davis (formerly in Big Train, Human Remains and Jam) as Jill Tyrrell, a sociopathic arch-manipulator who takes advantage of the well-meaning people around her.

The theme tune used in the beginning of both series and during the closing credits for the first is an excerpt from the spaghetti western My Name Is Nobody, composed by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.

In June 2006 it was announced that Sex and the City creator Darren Star will write and be executive producer of a US version, which has been commissioned for a pilot script. Steve Coogan and Henry Normal, founders of the production company Baby Cow, will be co-executive-producers.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Plot

[edit] First Series

In the first scene of the series, Jill sits in a doctor's office with her husband Terry (played by Kevin Eldon) having 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 her status as cancer widow (despite Terry being still alive) to gain maximum sympathy from those who work in her suburban beauty salon, and from the quiet well-to-do couple who live across the street from her. Don (Angus Deayton of One Foot In The Grave and KYTV) is a family doctor and his wife is Cath (Rebecca Front - 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, in order to put her own spin on the 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 to 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, Jill bends down, pretends to be incapable of moving and asks for Don's help. As Don is pulling her up from the ground, Cath enters and gets the wrong impression, to Don's irritation.

Running out of excuses for the ever-curious Terry, Jill is forced to take him home. She treats him badly, but says that she is doing it only to make him better. Then she 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, though really she despises 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 them, livening it up by performing a pole dance with the locals in the house watching. The Hopperton Nuns are also at the house and are duly shocked by Jill's antics. Meanwhile Don has become extremely drunk at the coffee evening and Cath announces she has had enough and is moving to Hopperton on her own; she departs, 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 knocked down by Jill. After the party Jill goes back to her place and smothers Terry with a cushion just as a confused and tired Don enters. There Don vomits and opens a door to find Jill lying on her bed. Don, just wanting to lie down and too 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 so he drops dead. She then tells Glen that if he loves her he would agree to take the blame for the vicar's death. He agrees and phones up the police to confess to the murder and also unwittingly confesses to the murder of Terry. This done, Jill 'shares' the Angel Delight with Glen, making him eat some first. When it's her turn, she exclaims "I'm not really hungry".

Glen takes the blame for the Vicar and Terry's deaths, while 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 to Cornwall (filmed in and around Bude) where they are trying to get the marriage to work at a health centre called The Trees. Jill sets off to Cornwall with Linda after discovering Cath and Don's address from Sue, with Linda accidentally pulling the life support plug hooked up to Gordon, killing him. They accidentally run over a black woman by the name of Floella Umbagabe, who just so happens to be starting a job at the health centre. Cath still has unresolved feelings towards Jill for her night of drunken passion with Don, who is enjoying life as a surfer dude. Jill manages to worm her way back into the Cole household and infiltrate their damaged marriage yet again, after disposing of Don's girlfriend, Natalie, Jill discovers Cath has a crush on her marriage therapist Jacques and pushes her to move in on him (so as Jill could get to Don) Cathy later becomes pregnant with Don's baby which makes Jill try to get pregnant, but fakes it, claiming that Cath and Don's twelve year old son Bruce raped her. Cath is doubtful but Jill manages to pull it off... for a while. A widowed Sue comes to stay with the new vicar, Arno, Sue is still depressed with Gordan's death and runs in to Vicar Arno's arms (and his bed) for comfort.

After Vicar Arno is convicted, and Cath's baby girl Abigail is born, Don can no longer resist the temptation that Sue has and privately saids to her that he wants to be with her and that he wants to move to Spain with her to start a new life. Jill overhears and thinks Don is talking about her, but Glen catches up with her armed with a gun, Jill soon convinces him that she wants him and that she's pregnant with his baby. After Jill claims she's given birth, Cath tries to look and soon Jill's web of lies catch up with her and she is chased to a cliff where Cath confronts her about her fake pregnancy, Cath and Jill begin to fight, in the heat of it, Cath's wheelchair is hurled off the cliff and lands on Sue who is below engaging in an affair with Don, Sue is left severely injured, with Don left confused as to what's happened. During the fight, Jill slips off the edge off the cliff, but lands on a trampoline below and bounces off, landing on Don. Jill rides off in a boat, with her husband Glen hanging off on a rubber ring and Don next to her who is severely brain damaged.

[edit] Music Featured in the Series

A soundtrack to the series was never officially released. Following is a list of music tracks featured in the series:

The following classical music appeared:

[edit] Cast

DVD cover
DVD cover

[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

[edit] External links