Blonde, Batty, Brash And Broke... (Girls On Top)

Member Name: sam1942

Product:	Girls On Top
Date:	13/02/07 (220 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enter the new wave female writer genius of French And Saunders

Disadvantages: Only ran for two series' the characters were killed off, a la Young Ones...

Naturally, the mere idea that a high flying West London flat would be housing a hypochondriac bimbo, a radical feminist, a failing actress and an immature Girl Guide type, not to mention an eccentric novelist - broke and futureless is crazy, (okay, so perhaps the former mentioned writer might still reside here.) Yet, the Kensington cosmos surrounding these strange, hapless, dead end types seems quite plausible for 1985. Only a stones throw away from indulgent sea of Sloanies, yuppies and all who are loaded, this shambling clutter of penniless lip gloss and army boots acted out their missable lives in this wondrous situation comedy we knew as ‘Girls On Top.’

Bringing together the alternative minds of Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Ruby Wax at a party one Christmas, the three young, unaccredited writers joined forces on this extraordinary idea of four mismatched female wonders thrown together to help pay the rent on a flat in London under the eccentric orders of the flightily novelist and general air head, Joan Greenwood. After enlisting the attributes of pretty ex ‘Three Of A Kind,’ comedienne, Tracey Ullman, the cast was complete, and the girls set to work on stamping hard down on the quaking ITV studio floor.

When sub-assistant editor for feminist rag, ‘Spare Cheeks,’ Amanda Ripley turns up on Lady Calton’s doorstep begging for a roof over her head, she is given the keys so long as she can come up with the extortionate rent. Ripley (Dawn French) quickly flags down failing, foul mouthed Shelley DuPont (Ruby Wax) to help along with old childhood tagger and general punch bag, Jennifer Marsh (Saunders.) The quartet is complete with the presence of high pitched, irritating and plastic doll-esque Candice Valentine played with equal annoyance by Tracey Ullman. The show then conducts itself around the general friction between the stereotypical females who not just rub each other up the wrong way but more how each character clashes in regard to their backgrounds.

Candice; every boys nightmare, followed a religious belief that there was always something incurable from which she suffered. Adding a sea of lies, mild extortion and failing relationships with unseen male characters, she dreamed to pots of money from some fictional sugar daddy. Made worse, visually in her sequined outfits and dolly bird image, she was, in particular, the most excruciating character of the lot. She was certainly the most self absorbed and given tuppence, she would have cast aside her so called ‘girlfriends,’ like yesterday’s fish. However, the other three were not held to ransom by Candice’s fictional tales and promptly saw straight through peroxided hair and spangly boob tubes, yet the others had just as many faults of their own. Shelley’s puffed up career fell from one acting ridge down to another. Selling herself to be more talented than she actually was, it appears now to the viewer, that these characters were failures in just about everything their tried to achieve. Not even united in their friendship, they all would quickly back stab the other three to get what they wanted and Shelley was no exception - perhaps the second most likely to bring home a wage, she flung herself at one cruddy audition after another, never appearing in anything for more than a week. Obsessively preening herself, she walked on the backs of the others, believing herself to be the next big thing. Loudly American, she flounced her way through each episode gaining little more than mild, false approval from everyone else.

Amanda Ripley was not just the only one to pull in a weekly wage, but the character who kept the whole performance together. Straight faced, stout and only two larger cans away from Greenham Common, she rallied around the rest of the crumbling crowd in her bossy air. Constantly using the dull, withdrawn Jennifer as a mental stress ball, she stamped out her authority from the word go. Taking the lead in every argument, apology and bill avoidance, she was masterful, in her devout ideas of an anti male environment. On few occasions, we see the real side of Ripley - the one who would give up her last bovver boot for a roll in the sack with a testosterone meat head.

Perhaps the one character with whom we feel largely uncomfortable with is Jennifer. Solemn, dull and expressively one dimensional, she appears not only grey and with a faint pulse, but the most air headed of the lot. Incapable of rising to answer the simplest of questions, she remains throughout the programme a slave to all that Amanda desires. General dogsbody to the house, Jennifer fails to stand her ground in the vast swamp of tasteless characters around her. We feel a slight amount of pity for her, yet on the one or two occasions, she does speak, we feel an absurd sense of achievement for her. All be it short lived, it is not long before she is quickly slapped down into her place.

The head of this bedlam of bad taste, is the Cartland - esque, Lady Calton played remarkably by gracefully ageing, Joan Greenwood. Appearing two years before she died of a heart attack, she is remembered for her theatrically eccentric, Lady Calton. Perhaps notably, the greatest performance of her career, she is a wonderfully English, presence whose character apparently writes romantic novels although appears pissed in many an episode. This remarkable grand lady of English theatre, is brought to us in a character who is dazed, forgetful and frightfully amusing, as it became the making of Greenwood. Not unlike the muttering genius of June Whitfield in Saunders’s masterpiece, ‘Absolutely Fabulous.’ Miss Greenwood here completes the cast in this explosively female comedy, which has to be said, wasn‘t that funny all the time...

Equalled to the male dominating, ‘The Young Ones,’ a few years before, the French/Saunders and Wax phenomenon were not just simply fighting back here with a female version of the same hap hazard and habitual horror as their male counterparts, but with an enwrapped, emotional edge and depth that only a female orientated comedy can deliver. Where ’The Young Ones,’ had focussed on silly noises, teenage, sexual depravation and downright student felt humour, the mimicking ’Girls On Top,’ shouted out female originated splendour, engaging on the strengths of each character. Where as ’The Young Ones,’ had depended on each other to generate the theme, it was the external influences of ’Girls On Top,’ which intrigued the audience and gave us the impression, that the very house in which they dwelled, was only a small part of their own lives.

Despite the extremities in which each of their engaging lives depend upon, it is the relationship (or not, as the case may be,) through the existence of each other that pulled the show through it’s trashy, low budget surface. However crass and frighten bad the show was, it was a pioneer for a whole host of future ‘girl power’ comedy chows which followed with much adoration for their predecessor. We were subjected to the greatest female writers ever to set foot onto stage or in front of screen throughout the back end of the 20th Century through this show, and through the broadened eyes of ITV; who dared to tread on many occasions on untreated ground, these writers could venture into pastures unchallenged. Perhaps in hindsight, it was through the absurdities of ‘Girls On Top,’ in which French/Saunders and Wax could let loose the immaturities of their minds before engaging on future, more experienced projects. Tightening their script abilities, the show not only introduced the households to their names, but fused together a partnership between Saunders and French that continued for well over another decade…


After the first series, it was apparent that Tracey Ullman had been bitten by the American flea which promptly sat her on a plane to forward a career over the pond and thus, never came back. It was rather humorously written in to the second series that she had died from one of her extraordinary ailments which had actually been true. It was, however, let to the audience to decide whether she had died or been bumped off by either one of the two most Candice hating of the other characters, Amanda or Shelley. Indeed the show continued well since Ullman had not been a lead writer in the first instance, but after a short run, the crew had decided to kill off the cast in a Lady Calton exploit in which she blows everyone up in the building with accidentally igniting petrol. The idea, came from the very plot which killed off the characters in ‘The Young Ones,’ once and for all, the idea of the most female indulgent series needed to be finalized and never to return. With better, brighter projects up their sleeves, ‘Girls On Top,’ had achieved exactly what it was set out to do - bring on the voice of a new breed of alternative writers - the girls.

The series worked on one main level; the fact that these characters - however bizarre, were believable in the sense that we were fooled for a moment that the actresses were actually playing sides of their own characters. Parallels can been seen through these characters in the workings of future productions from the cast. Where as Ruby Wax has made a successful career out of simply being a loud mouthed American, the other two paved their own paths for future successes; both characters, Ripley and Marsh can be found in other French and Saunders acts, be them sketches or in long running series, ‘Girls On Top,’ proved to be the powerful fore runner than it actually was, even more so today.

The only character to stand out was Ullman’s Candice. Since embarking on an entire life long route through the American TV system, Ullman has never gone back to Candice. Focusing herself on a serious comedy career, it would have been believed that the yanks simply would not have understood Candice and certainly not in the way we knew her…


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Since the new wave of alternative comedy linked arms with each other, and never letting go, the troop of new comedy actors marched their way in, rigidly, never breaking the chain. In such situations, they breathed on each other like life giving providers and practically queued up to be on each others shows. A whole line of future celebrities strolled onto to the set of ‘Girls On Top,’ for the CV filling - cameo role. Robbie Coltrane, Harry Enfield, John Sessions and Hugh Laurie to name only a small crowd of house hopping chums shuffled their squeaky loafers onto the credits. All patting themselves on the backs from unmasking yet another brilliant showcase of new talent. A breed of new comedians who simply shook Britain by the balls and told them to set aside their Monty Python re runs for just a brief while….



Since the explosion of alternative routes - this one was certainly on the girls….








Only 13 episodes were written, recorded and broadcast…







Series one - October to December 1985
Series two October - December 1986
Written by ;
Jennifer Saunders
Dawn French
Ruby Wax


Script Editor - Ben Elton
Witzend Productions for ITV.
Available on DVD complete series at www.sendit.com for £15.89
Amazon.com - £19.49
HMV - £21.99






©sam1942 2007

Summary: Mid Eighties female comedy show which broke the male dominated field.