We’d wondered if this scenario might be a touch too busy for a show that has often specialised in doing nothing much, very slowly and very charmingly for whole episodes at a time. But on the evidence of this opener, it should work fine.
Lazy, loved-up twentysomething bedsitters Becky and Steve have made up one of television’s most quietly convincing couples since BBC3 sitcom ‘Him & Her’ began in 2010. As the show comes to an end with a wedding for Becky’s awful sister Laura, stars Russell Tovey, Sarah Solemani and Kerry Howard explain how the lines have blurred between fact and fiction.
Could you actually live together in real life?
Sarah ‘Definitely – we’re all so close, it would work.’
Russell ‘We’ve been on holiday together, with our partners.’
Sarah ‘We should do that: Becky and Steve on holiday together where they don’t actually leave the hotel room, just watch telly, sit on the balcony and take the mick out of people.’
Do you drive each other insane with your bad habits?
Russell ‘When Sarah sneezes, she puts her finger in her ear and wiggles it up and down. Me and her husband both talk about it – it’s so noisy, like something out of “The Lion King”.’
Sarah ‘I am really messy. My husband is always moaning at me for carrying dirty tissues about.’
You could carry clean tissues…
Sarah ‘Yeah, but then you’ve got to find them.’
How much time have you spent on the loo during filming?
Kerry ‘Oh God, I wish I just had a bucket in my room, then I could just go “Eurrgghhh!”.’
Sarah ‘Me too. I’d like to go in a bucket. I don’t think my husband would be too happy. My room’s really far from my toilet as well, I have to walk up the stairs.’
Russell ‘During the series? So much time. Sitting down doing a wee… it’s a luxury, isn’t it? And, oh my God, someone actually did a dump in the set toilet in the new series!’
Sarah ‘It was a wee! It was just a wee.’
Russell ‘It stank!’
Sarah ‘The actual toilets were right next to the set toilet, and someone must have just asked directions and got it slightly wrong.’
Kerry ‘That whole room stank for the whole scene. It was awful!’
Sarah, you got married last year – were there any experiences you could draw on for this wedding?
Sarah ‘Nope. If you think about what weddings involve: the speeches, being made to say things about each other so publicly, the money… The new series really highlights what we’ve all bought into. Kerry and I both had BIG weddings. If we’d shot the series before that, I’d have been totally put off.’
Kerry ‘I’d have just got married in a registry office or something.’
You’re actually leaving the bedsit for this series.
Russell ‘We were worried it wouldn’t work being away from the flat and away from each other so long, but [in those scenes] when Steve and Becky come back together, it really works.’
Sarah ‘It’s those moments that Becky and Steve manage to steal together that really make it.’
What do you remember about the auditions?
Sarah ‘One of the benefits of being an unknown actor is that you can be whoever you want to be. When I turned up at the interview I was Becky straight away, and everyone just thought that was me.’
Russell ‘When I met Sarah she had on jeans, hoop earrings, spoke like Becky… I had no idea she went to Cambridge!’
Sarah ‘I didn’t realise the auditions would go on for so long. I kept getting call backs and every time I would go in character.’
Russell ‘Then on the first day of filming we realised she’s well posh!’
Does the show have to end?
Russell ‘It doesn’t feel like the end. We’ll probably do a Christmas special.’
Sarah ‘They’re all getting older and it won’t be the same show when they have jobs. It’s the only show that depicts people on benefits in a positive light, which is good.’
Becky’s such a together character. Why won’t she get a job?
Sarah ‘Becky and Steve aren’t ambitious, greedy or materialistic.’
Russell ‘They just want to hang out and have a laugh. They’re so happy with themselves. They’re who you want to be, really.’
Where do you see everyone in ten years time?
Russell ‘Dead!’
Sarah ‘No, they’d have to get jobs eventually.’
Russell ‘I think Steve will be a manager of Harvester or something. Becky will definitely earn more money than him. She’d be the sort of person that everyone’d just love – she’d keep on getting promoted.’
Sarah ‘I could see her being a youth worker.’
Russell ‘Or a teacher. Actually Steve could be a teacher. Or coaching kids football.’
Kerry ‘Laura’ll be in prison! She is in so much debt. They put the whole over-the-top wedding on credit card. But her and Paul will still be together. But she’d start having affairs as well, and then Laura will adopt a black baby. And Paul will be in prison. He’d probably like that. He’d be someone’s bitch.’
‘Him & Her: the Wedding’, begins Monday November 18, 10pm, BBC3.