Girls On Top

infobox television
show_name = Girls On Top


caption = From bottom left to bottom right: Amanda Ripley (Dawn French), Lady Chloe Carlton (Joan Greenwood), Shelley DuPont (Ruby Wax); From top centre to top right: Candice Valentine (Tracey Ullman) and Jennifer Marsh (Jennifer Saunders).
format = Situation comedy
runtime = 30 mins
creator = Dawn French
Jennifer Saunders
Ruby Wax

starring = Dawn French
Joan Greenwood
Tracey Ullman
Jennifer Saunders
Ruby Wax

country = UK
network = ITV
first_aired = 1985
last_aired = 1986
num_episodes = 13
imdb_id = 0088524/|

"Girls On Top" was a British television sitcom which ran on ITV from 1985 to 1986.. It was conceived by and starred comedic duo French & Saunders - in their first high-profile writing project for television - and despite a very low budget and poor critical reception received extremely high ratings. It was made for the ITV network by Central.

The show focused around four female flatmates and their landlady. The characters were broadly painted stereotypes with very little depth and the comedy focused entirely around the conflicts arising from their personalities. In many ways the show can be seen as an attempt at creating an all-female version of the alternative sitcom "The Young Ones", two series of which had appeared in 1982 and 1984. Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders had both made cameo appearances in this earlier show and, like most of its stars, were members of "The Comic Strip" group. Saunders is also married to Adrian Edmondson, one of the "Young Ones". Indeed, the characters of Amanda and Jennifer could be loosely perceived as female equivalents of Rick and Neil (see below).

Characters

* Amanda Ripley (Dawn French), a radical feminist who is strait-laced, anti-male and extremely liberal; also the character around whom the entire series was based. Like Shelley, she can also take her efforts too far when she has something to prove. Amanda tries to hide her fascination for men.
* Jennifer Marsh (Jennifer Saunders), an extremely mousy and child-like woman who serves as the whipping post for everyone else. In the second series she is slightly more assertive though no less naive.
* Shelley DuPont (Ruby Wax), a struggling actress and the British stereotype of a gaudily dressed, rude, loud-mouthed American.
* Candice Valentine (Tracey Ullman), a promiscuous, lazy, manipulative gold-digger. In Season 2, It is revealed to the girls that Candice has died, with each girl fearing they are to blame. This turns out to be a prank as they receive a recorded message from Candice,saying she is engaged to someone with more money than Shelley. She is not heard or spoken about after this episode
*Lady Chloe Carlton (Joan Greenwood), an eccentric elderly romance novelist and the landlady.

Others seen in cameo roles in "Girls On Top" included Helen Lederer, Pauline Melville, Helen Atkinson Wood, Mark Arden, Stephen Frost, Robbie Coltrane, Harry Enfield, Hugh Laurie, Pauline Quirke, Alan Rickman, John Sessions and Arthur Smith plus the Beverley Sisters and visiting American Soap star Katherine Helmond, who appeared once as Shelley's mother.

Synopsis

The first episode had Amanda struggling to find a flat and managing to procure one (that she cannot afford) from Lady Carlton. The former resident, Candice, convinces Amanda to let her stay until Wednesday because she has nowhere to go. Then Jennifer, Amanda's childhood friend, arrives unexpectedly with nowhere to go. Eventually Shelley is recruited to move in because none of the others can afford to cover the rent and deposit.

Each episode inevitably centered around the fact that Shelley could order the others around because they all relied on her to get the rent paid; usually the show also incorporated Candice's latest fabrication about some invented fatal illness, or any other reason she could invent to not have to pay the rent. One episode even had Candice convincing everyone she was dating Prince Andrew while another found her tricking Shelley into participating in an adult movie.

Ullman left the show after the first series and a variety of guests fleshed out the second series.

Ruby Wax, Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French all wrote Girls on Top.

DVD Releases

Crew

* Dawn French - Writer
* Jennifer Saunders - Writer
* Ruby Wax - Writer
* Ben Elton - Script Editor
* Paul Jackson - Director (series 1)
* Ed Bye - Director (series 2)
* Allan McKeown - Executive Producer
* Paul Jackson - Producer

External links

* [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1114885/index.html British Film Institute Screen Online]