“I didn't know romantic comedies were so much fun!”: The return of Gemma Arterton's utterly charming 60s drama | Television

A A deafening fire alarm sounds. The people of Bolton want to know what this terrible noise means. They stop shopping and crowd around the town hall in the rain as Gemma Arterton emerges from the emergency exit, fingers in her ears, a blonde wig under a baker's boy cap. “I'm wearing such a flashy costume,” she laughs, lowering her head and wrapping herself in her spectacular blue PVC coat. I walk beside her, wondering what I did wrong in a previous life that this should happen five minutes into our interview.

We're on location to film the second series of Funny Woman, Sky's adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel Funny Girl. Although the main scene is set in London, most of the production takes place in the north-west of England. Across the square (which stands in for Trafalgar Square), a nondescript building has been transformed into a thriving 60s-style department store. Vintage cars line the cobbled street. Earlier, a group of women – all wearing patent leather shoes – marched for equal rights, chanting: “What do we want? Equal pay! When do we want it? Yesterday!”

The comedy-drama series follows Sophie Straw (Arterton), a former Miss Blackpool and sugar factory worker who moves to the capital to become famous like her role model, comedian Lucille Ball. It's a love letter to Swinging Sixties London and the early days of great British TV comedy, with her rising to stardom in the first series in the sitcom Barbara (and Jim) – with all the sexism, classism and creeps that came with that. When she goes her own way in the second series with new show Just Barbara, we see all too clearly the man's world in which women like Sophie had to fight hard to be funny. You could say – and critics have – that it's a darker version of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.

Back in the building (it was a false alarm!) I quickly learn not to mention the M-word to Arterton. “People like to compare things, don't they?” she grins politely. “But Mrs Maisel is about a rich woman with a fancy house; our show is very much about the working class – they have a lot to lose and the stakes are much higher. Even Sophie, when she's at her peak, is one bad review away from going back to work in the skirt factory.”

Perhaps the comparison is also eye-rolling because Arterton, 38, is of working-class origins herself. After growing up in Kent with her father, a welder, and mother, a cleaner, she won a scholarship to study at Rada. Her breakthrough on screen came as Head Girl Kelly in the St Trinian's film, which earned her a role as a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace. But there is a clear trend towards powerful working-class stories, particularly in the stage productions Nell Gwynn and Made in Dagenham. She has since said: “If you are born into a class and it is in your soul and your core, you will never be anything else.”

Arterton has also been a leading voice in the #MeToo movement and the fight for equal pay. It can't have been easy: it's a disturbing realisation that at St Trinian's she played a schoolgirl opposite Russell Brand that his older character pined after, and she has spoken about being told by an American manager to “stop doing the feminism thing because it's not doing her any favours”. But that didn't stop her. Arterton called on female actors to wear black at the 2018 Baftas in solidarity with the anti-sexist movement Time's Up, wrote an alternative feminist ending for her Bond girl and founded production company Rebel Park in response to the lack of female roles in the industry.

Thankfully, she says, when I ask her if she can identify with any of the issues covered in the show, she hasn't had “any 'total' experiences” like Sophie, but there are “certainly things that I've witnessed or heard about.” “Sexism, racism, homophobia… all of these issues exist, of course, and we're still on the road to equality,” she adds, “but they're much less common.”

Arterton wanted to buy the rights to Hornby's novel as soon as she read it in 2014, but they had already been sold. A few years later, a production company contacted her with a script by screenwriter Morwenna Banks – who is also the voice of Mummy Pig in Peppa Pig – and asked if Rebel Park would like to co-produce it. It was a happy coincidence. “She's a lot like me, a working-class actress and – you wouldn't believe it – but I'm quite slapstick in real life,” she laughs.

The only major obstacle Arterton is currently facing is something Sophie hasn't had to worry about: being a working mother. This is her first project since giving birth to a baby boy with Peaky Blinders actor Rory Keenan in December 2022. “I'm not going to lie: It's been challenging,” she says. “The days in this job are very, very long. But it's only for a short time and then I'm a mum again. I've been asking myself, 'Am I going to be able to do this job and be a mum at the same time?' So I'm glad I've done it now. I'm just going to get on with it and not worry so much about little things.”

However, she would like to address one problem: “We could improve childcare in this business by setting up a daycare center and the like, because the working hours are too long. But that's a whole different issue.”

Arterton is pulled away to pick up a placard and join the protesters, and the three men in Sophie's life sit down to talk. Matthew Beard and Leo Bill play Sophie's writing team Bill and Tony, while Arsher Ali takes on the role of her director and her lover Dennis, who questions whether or not they are gay. Bill is trying to come to terms with being gay even though it's still illegal, Tony is expecting a baby, and Dennis is struggling with a widely frowned-upon divorce – all while trying to make another successful sitcom.

We learn that Sophie and Dennis – after confessing their feelings for each other – cannot be together for three years until his separation from his wife is finalised, so as not to damage their social reputation, which only makes you root for them even more. The romcom element is a big part of the story's charm, says Asher: “Although I didn't realise romcoms were so much fun until I did this – I've never seen Bridget Jones.”

That's not the only reason fans love the show. “It's very warm,” Beard says. “And each character explores an interesting side of the time, from politics to sexuality. It also shows how exciting television was back then!” It's clear they have a lot of fun filming too. “By 5 p.m. we're all slightly delirious,” he says. “It's a really dangerous time. We've definitely become corpses and lost our minds before.” Bill adds: “There are a lot of fooling around.”

It's no surprise that some well-known comedians are in the cast. In the first season, Rupert Everett played Sophie's shady talent agent, and this season Tim Key, Roisin Conaty and Gemma Whelan are joining the cast.

Whelan plays a journalist named Lynda, but she's not on set when I visit. A few months later, I finally speak to her via video call during a heatwave, while she's wearing funky sunglasses and sitting in her garden. “I'm in a paddling pool situation with the kids, so forgive me,” she says, before introducing her smiling young son splashing cold water on her feet. She's clearly an absolute delight, and yet she joins the show as its toxic villain.

“She wants to kill,” Whelan says of Lynda, who is trying to get to the bodies in Sophie's basement. “She's probably one of the few female journalists working in Fleet Street; another woman in a male-dominated industry just trying to make a living. She's going to get a story at any cost.” But the Game of Thrones actor had a lot of fun playing a not-so-nice character: “I spent a whole afternoon filming in Blackpool Tower!”

Whelan knows the world of comedy well: she began her career as a stand-up comedian and won the Funny Women Awards in 2010. Getting an agent and switching to acting was a “calculated move” and it paid off. She won the hearts of Game of Thrones fans as Yara Greyjoy and went on to star in top shows Upstart Crow, The End of the F***ing World, Gentleman Jack and Killing Eve.

What's it been like navigating both comedy and television over the last two decades? “It's a long way off, isn't it – equality?” she says. “But there's a lot more accountability and transparency in every job I do now: at the National Theatre it's a full day's work by consent and in television there are a lot of safeguards. No one can hide in plain sight anymore.”

Did this experience inspire her to do stand-up shows again? “No,” she says, with a serious expression. She loved doing her own shows, but these days she's more than happy for other people to do the writing and directing: “It means I'm not responsible for everything.”

Whelan says she loved working with Arteron and the rest of the gang – and it's easy to see why. Arterton was so engrossed in filming that she didn't even watch her other hit series from last year, Culprits (“I'll watch it when I'm done with it!”), while Beard describes production as a place where “chaos is kind of encouraged,” and Bill says, “It's just fun to be on set, messing around, having fun, and making something that's not deeply depressing.”

You can tell a third series is on the horizon – the drama is already moving beyond the book and Sophie has a long, exciting career ahead of her. If that happens, at least the people of Bolton will know to bring earplugs the next time Arterton is in town.

Funny Woman is on Sky Max To 6 September