‘I didn’t know romcoms were so fun!’: the return of Gemma Arterton’s utterly charming 60s drama

The comedy-drama follows Sophie Straw (Arterton), a former Miss Blackpool and stick-of-rock factory worker, who moves to the capital to find fame like her icon, the comic actor Lucille Ball. It’s a love letter to swinging 60s London and the dawn of great British TV comedy, with a first series that saw her find stardom in sitcom Barbara (and Jim) – and all the sexism, classism and creeps that came with it. As she goes it alone in series two with new show Just Barbara, we see all too clearly what a man’s world women like Sophie had to fight hard to be funny in. You could say, and critics have, that it is a grittier version of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.