It's liberating, loud, anarchic and joyful

THE CAST OF BBC COMING-OF-AGE DRAMA WHAT IT FEELS LIKE FOR A GIRL SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES OF WORKING ON THE PUNKY NEW SHOW.

- BY ELLA WALKER

ALLOW yourself to be transported back to the Y2K era thanks to wild new drama, What It Feels Like For A Girl. Based on the memoir of the same name by writer and journalist Paris Lees, the eight-part BBC series has been adapted for telly by Paris and lead director Brian Welsh (Beats, Black Mirror) and kicks off at the start of the new millennium.

Byron, played by relative newcomer Ellis Howard, is a teenager trapped in a working-class town where the closure of the coal mine in the 1980s still looms large.

Then Byron breaks free, embarking on a vibrant, hedonistic party lifestyle in Nottingham’s underworld, where everything is fast, keyed-up and in absolute technicolour.

Embraced by Lady Die (played by Laquarn Lewis) and her ‘Fallen Divas’ crew - a chaotic bunch of hellraisers and club fiends - it's when Byron falls for troublemaker Liam (played by Jake Dunn, known for Renegade Nell, and for dating Bridgerton and Derry Girls actress Nicola Coughlan), that things take a turn for the worse.

Tackling gender identity, what makes a family, class, sexuality and friendship, “it’s the story of someone who has grown up in a small town with people who aren't like them, dreaming of a life bigger and bolder,” says Ellis, who describes the show as “loud”, in a good way.