Aquarius weekly horoscope: What your star sign has in store for June 15
OUR much-loved astrologer Meg sadly died in 2023 but her column will be kept alive by her friend and protégé Maggie Innes.
Read on to see what's written in the stars for you today.
AQUARIUS
JAN 21 - FEB 18
🔵 Read our horoscopes live blog for the latest readings
That extra push you need to complete a challenging task, can
come from Mars – and be reinforced by the sun.
Meanwhile, Jupiter and Saturn square up and you can speak or write the right words to get yourself back in a work
or health opportunity.
It's important to talk to yourself in positive ways, especially about love – because you are enough, and you do deserve happiness.
DESTINY DAYS: Heal your heart with some inner truth-telling on Tuesday. But set aside some of Wednesday to explore
a fascinating creative work field. Open your eyes on Saturday, to see new 'L' romance looking right back.
LUCKY LINKS: Red writing on a blue background. A prize that doubles every day. The youngest person in a sport or
leisure team.
JUPITER SQUARE SATURN: Although you may be growing impatient with a work or wellbeing situation, the third
Jupiter-Saturn square in less than 12 months can be a key success factor.
You can express ideas that so far may have felt too difficult for words – and you can connect so well with difficult or
distant people.
Deep trust in yourself, to stay calm, and just get stronger, can be repaid with a series of exciting offers.
Fabulous is the home of horoscopes, with weekly updates on what's in store for your star sign as well as daily predictions.
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The Guardian
44 minutes ago
- The Guardian
A £2.5m dud? Fresh doubt cast on authenticity of National Gallery Rubens
It is an unwelcome question, but an important one: did the National Gallery buy a £2.5m dud? This has remained the suspicion of many experts since one of Britain's premier cultural institutions acquired Samson and Delilah, a long-lost masterpiece by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, in 1980. And 45 years on, the debate has been stirred once again, with a petition launched calling for the National Gallery to honour its 1997 promise to stage a public debate on its authenticity. This time, it's not the front of the painting that's under scrutiny – it's the back of it. The debate began soon after the National Gallery bought the biblical depiction, known to have been painted by the master around 1609 before being lost for centuries. For the gallery, it was a 17th-century jewel in its collection, the sort of work to which tourists would flock. But some immediately began to question the brushwork (too clumsy), describing it as a brash 20th-century copy of the original – and these doubts have only intensified. For instance, Katarzyna Krzyżagórska-Pisarek, a Rubens scholar, described the Samson and Delilah as 'highly problematic' and 'oddly modern'. And Christopher Wright, a leading specialist in 17th-century paintings, said the picture itself was simply 'wrong'. He added: 'It lacks Rubens's subtlety. It has a beguiling, slush-and-splosh grandeur … All my instincts of knowing about old masters bring me to that observation. It's not a 17th-century picture.' Feelings run deep in the art world over the question of the painting's origins. Michael Daley, the director of ArtWatch UK, has researched the painting extensively and claims to have uncovered a mountain of evidence against the Rubens attribution. He calls it 'the biggest of all museum scandals' and 'a top-down conspiracy to conceal a massive purchasing blunder that debases Rubens's oeuvre'. The latest twist in this enduring saga comes courtesy of remarks made – and then withdrawn – by Christopher Brown, a former curator of the National Gallery, who headed the Dutch and Flemish collections. Speaking to the Guardian, Brown insisted the painting was authentic, but intriguingly, he also said that it was the National Gallery that had attached a modern blockboard to the painting's back. This apparent admission has electrified the Rubens doubters once more. The backs of pictures often carry as much history as the front. With Samson, the panel on which the painting was originally painted has been planed down and attached to a modern blockboard, covering up whatever was underneath. Critics suspect that the original panel may have held crucial evidence relating to the date of the painting. The doubters also think the picture's traditional cradled support was removed at the time. This would mean any clues to the Samson and Delilah's origins and age – and therefore its authenticity – have disappeared. One piece of evidence on the panel might have been the makers' monogram, the application of which was the done thing in 17th-century Antwerp. If a panel-maker's mark had showed the panel to have been made later than around 1609, that would have shown that the painting was almost certainly a copy. When the gallery acquired the painting in 1980, there was no talk of a blockboard – it was bought as a panel. The gallery's first public mention of the blockboard was in its 1983 technical bulletin report, with an earlier reference in its 1982 board minutes, when Brown was seeking permission to clean the painting. That was after the gallery had owned it for two years and its timber expert, Anthony Reeve, had described it as one of three unproblematic panels. The National Gallery said the painting's back had been glued to a blockboard sheet 'probably during the [20th] century', adding in a 1990s exhibition catalogue: 'The Samson and Delilah was planed down to a thickness of about 3mm and set into a new blockboard panel before it was acquired by the National Gallery in 1980 and so no trace of a panel maker's mark can be found.' However, an eminent art historian's condition report before the 1980 auction stated that the panel was 'excellently preserved' and measured between 25mm and 40mm in thickness. And herein lies the mystery: who planed down the panel and glued it to modern blockboard, when did they do it and why? Several renowned experts have questioned the logic behind the decision, considering it had been described as being in good shape. Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Wright said: 'The matter is of very great importance because the blockboard conceals the possible original evidence on the panel. When the picture appeared at Christie's, it looked immaculate. If the panel had been insecure, it would have been obvious.' When approached by the Guardian, Brown said it was the gallery that put on the blockboard – a brand-new admission from a former curator held in the utmost regard. Brown said: 'The present backing was put on by the National Gallery … It's rather a thin panel. It's undoubtedly been thinned down at a certain stage and it was really to strengthen the panel.' However, after the Guardian approached the gallery for comment, Brown later changed his tune. He said: 'The National Gallery says that the backboard was applied before its acquisition. I have no reason to disbelieve them, and am certainly not in a position to contradict them.' In his original interview, he had argued that 'the idea that the National Gallery is in some way concealing something is nonsense' and that 'the great scholars of Rubens have, since 1980, congratulated me'. Daley described Brown's initial comments as 'startling', adding that he himself has 'a 2002 correspondence with the gallery denying that this had been done by their restorers'. The painting had been previously attributed to lesser hands, and has no history as a Rubens before 1929, when it was found by Ludwig Burchard, a German historian who, after his death in 1960, was found to have misattributed paintings for commercial gain. Krzyżagórska-Pisarek has subsequently discovered that at least 75 works that Burchard attributed to Rubens have been officially demoted. She described the Samson and Delilah as 'just the tip of the iceberg', noting 'the harsh, uniform red of Delilah's dress' and Samson's muscled back, which she said was 'anatomically incorrect', as well as a 'curious lack of craquelure' – fine cracks that would be expected on a 400-year-old painting. She expressed frustration over the lack of debate, adding: 'They don't want a discussion because we've got arguments that are really impossible to answer. This cannot be the original Rubens.' Amid all the uncertainty, two things are for sure: the provenance of the painting will continue to send the art world into a spin, with scholars and aesthetes across the world continuing to call for that public debate. The National Gallery said: 'Samson and Delilah has long been accepted as a masterpiece by Peter Paul Rubens. Not one single Rubens specialist has doubted that the picture is by Rubens. Painted on wood panel in oil shortly after his return to Antwerp in 1608 and demonstrating all that the artist had learned in Italy, it is a work of the highest aesthetic quality. 'A full discussion of the panel was published by Joyce Plesters and David Bomford in the Gallery's Technical Bulletin in 1983, when Christopher Brown was the Gallery's curator responsible for the picture. Their findings remain valid, including their unequivocal statement that the panel was attached to a support before the picture was acquired by the National Gallery.'
Daily Mail
44 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Royal fans left in stitches as Prince Louis eagerly waves during Trooping the Colour flypast... until his elder brother intervenes
Royal fans have reacted to Prince Louis' antics during the Royal Air Force flypast over Buckingham Palace yesterday. On June 14, the country came together to mark King Charles's official birthday, accompanied by a spectacular display of military pomp and pageantry. The Royal Family then waved to crowds from the balcony of Buckingham Palace as part of an annual tradition. On the balcony, Charles, 76, and Queen Camilla, 77, were joined by the Prince and Princess of Wales, their three children - George, 11, Charlotte, 10, and Louis, seven - as well as Princess Anne and her husband, Vice-admiral Sir Timothy Laurence. The Duke of Kent and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh also stood on the balcony in a display of solidarity that rounded out the Trooping the Colour festivities. Prince William and Kate Middleton's youngest child, Louis, put on perhaps his most animated display yet as he waved enthusiastically at fans while showing off his gap-toothed grin - much to the amusement of his siblings. Ever the composed older brother, Prince George gently tried to calm Louis down by placing one hand on his arm as their father, William, 42, looked affectionately down at his sons - while Princess Kate and Charlotte, 10, took in their surroundings. The moment proved entertaining to spectators, and royal fans have taken to X to comment on it. One wrote alongside laughing emojis, 'He's such a fabulous little character.' A second added, 'I love this kiddo. He's clearly being raised right to have the confidence to be so openly joyful and happy in a massive crowd. Wave away, dear boy!' Another wrote, 'He is such a cute little fellow! Love to see him so excited. He is young and will learn.' 'He never disappoints,' wrote a fourth, adding, 'So funny.' A fifth wrote, 'He loves to wave! And look at Prince George being the big brother and making him stop.' Elsewhere, in a different moment, Louis turned to his grandfather Charles and appeared to make an observation about the fighter jets flying overhead as a body language expert noted Louis' effervescent personality shone through from the balcony. If Louis once found the proceedings overwhelming, you wouldn't know it from the way he snuck in one final wave before Kate, 43, gently ushered her brood back into Buckingham Palace after the spectacular flypast was concluded. Commenting on the young royal's reluctance to go back inside, Judi James told MailOnline: 'There was a seismic change in royal body language signals on the balcony with Louis suddenly morphing into the most visible and active royal but for all the right reasons. 'Instead of his usual playful activities, he appeared totally focused on the aircraft, only turning to his dad to show off his plane spotting skills, with the affirming nods from William suggesting his younger son is becoming a bit of an aircraft expert 'It was also Louis lingering longer before going back in, to gaze down at the crowds and to keep up the increasingly royal looking waves longer than the rest of the Firm.' Taking cues from his father and grandfather, Louis attempted different variations of his royal wave while making sure his siblings were thoroughly entertained throughout their balcony appearance - one of the most eagerly-awaited moments of the day. Royal fans took to X to share their thoughts on Prince Louis' entertaining balcony moment yesterday Prince Louis made his most memorable Trooping the Colour appearance yesterday as the young royal's antics ensured all eyes were on him during the famed Royal Air Force flypast over Buckingham Palace Louis covered his face as he and older brother, Prince George, arrived at Buckingham Palace after Trooping the Colour ceremony in London on the occasion of their grandfather, King Charles' official birthday Louis also joined Princess Charlotte, Prince George, and the Duchess of Edinburgh in observing one minute of silence in honour of the 241 passengers and crew killed in the Air India plane crash on Thursday, when a Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for Gatwick Airport came down in the Indian city of Ahmedabad. During the King's Birthday Parade - the third of Charles' reign - the Wales children rode in a carriage with Kate as they waved at onlookers gathered along The Mall to watch the procession. Prince Louis caught the attention of royal watchers as he flashed a cheeky grin and waved at the assembled crowds during Trooping the Colour on Saturday. As the carriage made its way towards Buckingham Palace, Louis grinned sheepishly at Prince George as Kate and Charlotte - who both paid tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II by wearing pieces of jewellery she loved - laughed and chatted away. As their carriage pulled up outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, George couldn't help himself from laughing as Louis pulled funny faces while feigning exasperation as the cheekiest royal dramatically leaned back into his seat. When Prince George covered his face, his younger brother quickly followed suit and copied his actions before Kate led her and Prince William's children inside to prepare them for the flypast. Ahead of the celebrations, crowds of well-wishers and royal fans started lining the Mall. If the cardboard cutouts they carried were any indication, the Princess of Wales ' arrival was most eagerly anticipated. Photos showed a group of Britons holding up a life-sized picture of the Princess of Wales, wearing the red, long-sleeved Alexander McQueen dress she most famously donned for the Diamond Jubilee pageant in 2012. Another person was carting around a cut-out of King Charles, dressed in full military regalia, in a show of support for the monarch as he continues to receive treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. No doubt the appearance of Prince Louis - the youngest of the Wales' siblings - was also highly anticipated. He is known for his cheeky antics, and last year he stole the show. During one of his many animated displays, the young prince was caught on camera scrunching up his face, while Kate, 43, appeared to crouch down to talk with her son on a balcony on Horse Guards Parade. The Prince and Princess of Wales ' youngest child was also captured yawning at the London event, which usually consists of more than 1,400 parading soldiers, 200 horses, 400 musicians and a flyover of 70 aircraft. Seemingly not occupied enough by the parade, at one point, the cheeky prince was even caught tugging on the cord for the blinds as he chatted to his mother. Louis, who was wearing a double breasted blazer, a pair of shorts, a crisp shirt and a tie last year, could not hide his facial expressions - much to the enjoyment of fans. He even attempted to try and open the window on the balcony next to the Duchess of Edinburgh, gripping the frame as he tried to pull it up. And the prince looked less than impressed during the ride, knitting his brows together at points as he stared out of the window, open-mouthed. The Wales were once again, typically stylish for the event this year as they made their arrival. Taking cues from his father and grandfather, Louis attempted different variations of his royal wave while making sure his siblings were thoroughly entertained throughout their balcony appearance - one of the most eagerly-awaited moments of the day Trooping the Colour is a centuries-old tradition that marks the Sovereign's official birthday. It dates back to the 17th century and is rooted in battlefield custom, when regimental flags, or 'colours,' were trooped in front of soldiers to ensure they could be recognised amid the smoke of combat. Last week, a full-dress rehearsal, known as The Colonel's Review, took place serving as the final run-through before the King's official celebration. This year, the honour of Trooping the Colour falls to the Coldstream Guards, who officially presented their regimental flag, known as the Colour, to King Charles. Held traditionally on the second Saturday in June, regardless of the Sovereign's actual date of birth, the celebrations have marked the monarch's official birthday since the mid-1700s. Queen Elizabeth attended all but two of her Trooping the Colours, missing it in 1955 when a national rail strike resulted in the event being cancelled and in 2020 due to lockdown restrictions. The parade is open to members of the public through an online ballot with ticketing ranging from £10 to £30 and is broadcast live on the BBC. What is Trooping the Colour? The Trooping of the Colour has marked the official birthday of the British Sovereign for more than 260 years. Over 1400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians come together each June in a great display of military precision, horsemanship and fanfare to mark the Sovereign's official birthday. The streets are lined with crowds waving flags as the parade moves from Buckingham Palace and down The Mall to Horse Guard's Parade, alongside Members of the Royal Family on horseback and in carriages. The display closes with an RAF fly-past, watched by Members of the Royal Family from Buckingham Palace balcony. Once the Sovereign has arrived at Horse Guard's Parade in Whitehall, they are greeted by a Royal salute and carry out an inspection of the troops, who are fully trained and operational soldiers wearing the ceremonial uniform of red tunics and bearskin hats. After the military bands have performed, the escorted Regimental Colour, or flag, is processed down the ranks of soldiers. Over one hundred words of command are used by the Officer in Command of the Parade to direct the several hundred soldiers. Once the Foot Guards have marched past the Sovereign, they ride back to Buckingham Palace at the head of the soldiers, before taking the salute again at the Palace from a dais. The Sovereign is then joined by other Members of the Royal Family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to watch a fly-past by the Royal Air Force. A 41-gun salute is also fired in Green Park to mark the occasion.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Who else can we annoy with our show?': Such Brave Girls, Britain's most gleefully offensive comedy returns
Few writers take criticism well, fewer actively court it. Kat Sadler, however, has an insatiable appetite for negative feedback. When crafting her BBC sitcom Such Brave Girls, the 31-year-old frequently runs the scripts past her younger sister and co-star Lizzie Davidson – but she isn't looking for praise. Instead, 'she wants you to tear it to pieces', says Davidson. 'She loves it.' 'I get off on it,' confirms Sadler, with matter-of-fact melancholy. 'You're like: yeah, yeah, yeah,' says Davidson, mimicking her sister's dismissive response to compliments. 'Now tell me what you didn't like about it.' Unfortunately, Sadler's masochistic streak isn't getting much gratification at the moment: where Such Brave Girls is concerned, complaints have been very thin on the ground. The first series of this vicious and relentlessly outrageous BBC sitcom – in which Sadler and Davidson play Josie and Billie, a pair of desperate, delusional, self-obsessed sisters tiptoeing around their perpetually furious mother – was met with a unanimously enthusiastic response from critics when it aired in the winter of 2023: a slew of award nominations followed; soon after, it won the Bafta for best scripted comedy. This was an exceptional achievement for two reasons. First, because the pair's success seemed to come out of nowhere. Sadler had been a joke writer for hire on TV comedy entertainment shows (Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable; Joe Lycett's Got Your Back), while Davidson was an aspiring actor marooned in interactive children's entertainment (a particular grim job at a Shrek-themed show attracted bratty kids who seemed to enjoy insulting the cast). Second, because Such Brave Girls was a product of extreme low points in both their lives: during lockdown, the sisters had a phone call in which Davidson confessed she had accrued £20k of debt and Sadler revealed she had been sectioned after trying to end her life twice. Miraculously, the pair managed to see the funny side, and decided to channel their collective misery into a sitcom – keeping Sadler's mental health issues for Josie, but transferring Davidson's debt to their fictional mother, Deb. The result is a remorselessly hilarious show about depression, anxiety, sexuality, abandonment, dysfunctional relationships and poverty that never gets close to worthy, earnest dramedy; something you could probably predict from the very first episode, in which Deb orders Josie – who has been experiencing low moods and panic attacks – to cheer up as her 'haunting presence' is negatively affecting Deb's new boyfriend's libido. I first spoke to the pair a couple of weeks before series one aired. At that point, the sisters (who have different surnames as Sadler is a stage name) were giddy with nerves, grappling with the surreal prospect of their semi-autobiographical sitcom being broadcast to the nation; each day Davidson would refresh the TV planner in the hope of glimpsing it in the schedules. We meet again in December 2024, on the set of series two. Since the show's rapturous reception and Bafta win – an invitation to the British comedy firmament if ever there was one (past winners have included The Office, Peep Show, The Thick of It and Derry Girls) – I assume their lives have been transformed into a whirlwind of showbiz thrills. Have they? 'I wish they had,' says Sadler, eating lunch in a shabby makeshift green room during a brief break from filming. 'You need to hear about the day we won the Bafta. It was just weird.' The pair got an Uber home from the ceremony, 'and it was just like: well, back to our lives. I got up the next morning, went to the office and carried on writing.' Meanwhile, Davidson – a gifted comic actor – immediately went back to her job in a clothing shop. 'And nobody said anything!' says Sadler, still astonished. 'I didn't even take my makeup off from the night before, I just turned up and was like: hey guys!' Davidson recalls. Having envisaged a victorious return to the shop floor, she was quickly brought back down to earth. '[My colleagues] were just like: the shoes are there,' Davidson sighs. She's due to go back to her day job the month after we speak. The pair may not feel like superstars, but the Such Brave Girls set certainly has a buzz about it. Although the action is set in the West Sussex commuter town of Crawley, the show's interior scenes are filmed in a defunct school on the outskirts of Liverpool, and the BBC's director of comedy Jon Petrie and two other senior producers have also made the long journey north-west to check in on one of their hottest properties. Britcom giant Simon Bird, AKA Will from The Inbetweeners – who wrote Sadler a letter asking if he could work on the series after falling in love with the pilot – is once again in the director's chair (in this case, one of the chintzy armchairs in the sisters' fictional living room). I watch Sadler and Davidson perform a two-hander, which differs markedly from that day's script; the pair alter and edit the words as they go along, sometimes for clarity, sometimes for extra laughs and sometimes just because someone forgot a couple of their lines. It is clear that Sadler is genuinely not precious about her dialogue; Bird also seems very relaxed about the on-camera brainstorming. 'There's lots of flexibility, but you also get that sense that Kat knows what it is,' says Sherlock's Louise Brealey, who plays the sisters' mother, Deb. 'They're guardians of their characters,' says Sadler, about the cast. 'So often the thing they want to change is right. It will be something I haven't noticed.' Brealey plays Deb as a fellow Northamptonshire native, so usually makes minor changes to the phrasing to suit her accent, which she amps up for the show. 'You do an accent?' chips in Davidson, with mock confusion. Brealey rolls her eyes. 'They tease me, this is a running joke.' 'It's so subtle,' continues Davidson, as the sisters descend into hysterics. 'Get fucked,' says Brealey. 'My real voice is posh!' It is hard to imagine Josie and Billie baiting Deb with such impunity: the Such Brave Girls matriarch is an extraordinarily cynical, appearance-obsessed woman on the verge, desperate to hang on to her man/meal ticket Dev (Benidorm's Paul Bazely) and ready to brutally lay into her firstborn at a moment's notice (her targets include Josie's ketchup usage, depressive episodes, unshaven legs, round shoulders and androgynous dress sense). Is she going to be as horrible in series two? Sadler jumps to her defence: 'I don't think she's horrible, I think she doesn't mince her words.' Brealey isn't so sure. Actors are meant to be eternally sympathetic to their characters, she says, but 'I would say she's pretty much a monster'. Brealey is clearly very different from Deb: effusive and extroverted, she sings loudly while having her makeup touched up and cringes as she recalls filling pauses in production by performing showtunes for the crew. Josie and Billie, on the other hand, began life as exaggerated versions of the sisters themselves. As well as her mental health issues, Josie shares Sadler's belief that trauma is an interesting personality trait; ever the self-flagellator, she seems to revel in sending herself up. Josie, she insists, 'is the worst one, because she's such a pure narcissist. She really believes she's the main character – everything revolves round her.' Like her character, the real-life Sadler comes across as thoughtful and amenable – but doesn't share her fictional alter ego's cartoonish passivity; Josie is people-pleasing to the point of ridiculousness. Davidson, meanwhile, tells me she identifies with Billie's 'obsession with attention', which her character often attracts via aggro melodrama. In person, she is mischievously irreverent but far more laid-back than Billie, who also works in the bleak world of children's entertainment (an opportunity for many strikingly incongruous costume choices; in one episode she arrives at an abortion clinic dressed as a witch). Series one of Such Brave Girls covered Josie's attempts to get a girlfriend while blocking out the constant presence of her clammy, cockroach-like boyfriend Seb (Freddie Meredith), while Billie pursued her noncommittal 'soulmate' Nicky (Sam Buchanan) with unhinged devotion. In the final episode, the pair attend their paternal grandmother's funeral, hoping to confront their father, who popped out for teabags a decade ago and never came back. (When I tell Sadler I'd presumed that bit hadn't actually happened, she replies: 'No, not teabags.') If series one was the long-awaited debut – into which Sadler could channel all the rich raw material she had accrued over her lifetime – series two is the difficult second album, requiring less literal truth and more imagination. Sadler initially didn't let herself think about a follow-up – it would have been 'too heartbreaking' if it hadn't been recommissioned ('Like: what do I do with all these thoughts?!'). The writing process was daunting and exhausting. 'I have gone loopy. Lizzie's had to do a lot of mental health work on me this year to keep me going,' says Sadler. 'A lot of phone calls, a lot of day trips, a lot of shopping,' nods Davidson. A breakthrough came when Sadler decided to turn up the intensity: the money aspect is 'more stressful, the house is more cramped – everybody's stuck'. Her north star was a determination 'to make everyone's lives worse'. I can confirm that series two is Such Brave Girls 'squared', as Brealey puts it: all the women's romantic, financial and existential problems remain but intensified to nightmarish proportions. Sadler also decided to make a list of hot-button topics to weave into the script: 'stuff that had been annoying me in the news or a concept I'd seen people get irritated about online. Then I'd think: how would our characters deal with that?' The answer, usually, is in the most unenlightened way possible: in series one, depression is an irritant, not conforming to beauty standards is 'selfish', therapists are cashing in on other people's misery, trauma is a turn-on, sex is just something to 'get through', and suicide is used as emotional blackmail. Series two, meanwhile, mercilessly satirises the idea of contented singledom, and puts uproariously novel spins on age-gap affairs and coercive control. This is one of the secrets of Such Brave Girls' success: it combines contemporary relevance – the show is essentially about a depressed woman grappling with her sexuality – with an utter lack of compassion and empathy. Yet while the show rebels against the sanctimony that has plagued modern comedy, it doesn't hark back to old-school political incorrectness. The jokes about Josie's exponentially serious mental health issues do not punch down because they closely mimic Sadler's own experiences. 'If you lived it, if it has truth, you can get away with anything,' she says. Still, in a landscape of warm, big-hearted, issue-led comedy, Such Brave Girls feels deliciously risque. For series two, Sadler was focused on 'how nefarious we can make our characters' and 'who else we can annoy with our show'. 'How much offence we can cause,' adds Brealey. Does Sadler think the show caused offence? 'I don't really look online at that stuff,' she says, brow furrowed. If she had, she wouldn't have found much pushback. Such Brave Girls has achieved a rare feat: a not safe, not nice and genuinely boundary-pushing sitcom that hasn't caused any discernible upset. Which, for a criticism junkie like Sadler, might not be the news she was hoping for. Series two of Such Brave Girls airs on 3 July on BBC Three and iPlayer. The charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978
