Daisy May Cooper spills the beans

BBC One’s acclaimed comedy-thriller Am I Being Unreasonable? has been commissioned for a third series, star Daisy May Cooper has revealed.

The news comes before the second series of the Bafta-nominated has even aired – and despite Cooper, who writes the show with co-star Selin Hizli, saying they initially intended the programme to last for just the initial six episodes.

In the series, Cooper plays Nic, a mum stuck in a depressing marriage and harbouring a secret about an affair with her brother-in-law, with Hizli as Jen, a mysterious newcomer to the village with whom she strikes up a friendship.

Asked about the forthcoming second series on Firecrotch & Normcore: They Like To Watch – the podcast hosted by comedian Sara Barron and her radio presenter husband Geoff Lloyd – Cooper said: ‘I didn’t bloody want there to be [one]. But then they said, "look, here's some money". They’ve even commissioned a fucking third series.’

It’s not clear whether the BBC has committed to making a series, of whether it is just the scripts that have been ordered so far.

Cooper also explained how she and Hizli, a friend since drama school, did not throw themselves into the writing process.

She said: ‘’We’ll sit down and we'll say we've got to get this done. And then she'll say, "Do you want to watch the next episode of Married At First Sight UK?"

‘Then we'll be six episodes in and our producer will be on the phone saying "where's the work?" and we say ‘oh, we'll send it, it's just a bit of a dodgy internet connection". She [Hizli] is just as lazy as I am, which is terrible for getting stuff done.

"And we got some money in advance, which is the worst thing that you can do. I spent that money fucking ages ago, I don't want to do any fucking do any work for that now. So it has been like pulling teeth.’

She also added that the second series was more complicated given the expectations generated by the first. 

‘I's been really difficult this series because I think there were so many twists and turns in the first one, people will be expecting that in the second one. So it's like, what do we do different? And that took us a while, we literally went through every avenue there possibly could be. 

‘But I think we've found the way now to go forward. And I think that it will be surprising but in a way that you've not seen.’

The show co-stars  Lenny Rush – who won a Bafta for his performance as Nic’s son – Jessica Hynes, Dustin Demri-Burns, Amanda Wilkin, David Fynn and Juliet Cowan

Cooper’s podcast comments were first reported by the UK Comedy Guide, but the BBC has declined to comment.

Published: 11 Jan 2024