This TV Show's Female Characters Are Deviant, Disorderly, and Disgusting—And I'm Here For It.

By Lulu Simons

Oh hello! I’m Lulu—someone who is currently (due to a recent re-binge) and historically OBSESSED with Channel 4’s Green Wing.

Green Wing was a mid-2000s surrealist-sitcom, set in a hospital where the medicine is irrelevant and everyone is spiralling. It’s a fast-cut ensemble comedy, dialled way past normal human limits.

Whilst despite my better judgement, I long for the type of love that informs a man to burst into my life in a pair of Y-fronts exclaiming love through the medium of recorder (IYKYK); it’s the women who’ve influenced my viewing, acting and comedy.

Plainly, the female characters in Green Wing are grotesque, hedonistic and feral.

In a world of roles and expectations of women being either the seductress, the mother or the eyerolling-wife—seeing women being deviant, disorderly and disgusting lit my little comedy chimp brain on fire.

They’re not messy in a curated-TV sense, or relatable (I hope…) in any way, nor sympathetic. Their hubris isn’t about not seeing their beauty, their worth, their value to a male lead or love interest.

They’re the kind of grotesque usually reserved for men in comedy—the Mark Corrigan’s or the Edward Tattsyrup’s. The canon of damp, needy British masculinity is handed to Green Wing’s female characters, saying: go on then, ruin yourselves…

Spoiler, they do.

The character of Sue White, without question, is a portrayal so brilliant it feels less like an on-screen character and more of a visual threat.

Sue in HR is feral, obsessive, and operating on a frequency that no one else can quite access. Her fixation, her volatility, her complete lack of boundaries—it tips over from comedy into something almost horror-adjacent. And crucially, the show never explains her. There’s no softening backstory, no “ah, that’s why she’s like this.” She just is. A force. A problem. A woman allowed to be not just unlikable, but actively frightening.

The influence of Sue, played by Michelle Gomez, has been woven into so many on stage portrayals and I think in many ways made me a braver actor with comedy. There isn’t a line—too far isn’t far enough sometimes—and the audience will believe what you tell them.

Whether her arms grow inexplicably in a meeting whilst holding a straight-conversation; taking up ventriloquism alongside detective work, or birthing a live lion in her office—it all makes sense, for Sue.

The physicality of Sue, Joanna (another fave), and even the slightly more “normal” Caroline (slightly…) is incredibly bold. You can see the attitudes, the energy and the insanity driven through the stiletto as it hits the vinyl floor of the hospital grounds. It’s a display of anti-trad feminine wiles with each step.

There’s no protective layer of femininity, no sense that they must remain appealing or even coherent. They sweat. They obsess. They misread situations. They become physically awkward, emotionally excessive, occasionally repellent. The body is always in play in Green Wing—and women are not exempt from that. They’re just as likely to be the punchline of a visual gag, just as subject to the show’s fascination with physical discomfort and bodily chaos.

Which, even now, feels oddly radical.

Because even now, have expectations of women in comedy being sharp, or dry, or self-aware. We’re used to “messy,” but a very particular kind of messy—one that’s narrativised, aestheticised, ultimately contained. Even when female characters are chaotic, the chaos tends to come with explanation. Trauma, backstory, a knowing wink to the audience: don’t worry, we understand why she’s like this.

Green Wing doesn’t care about any of that and you can see it’s influence in so many comedic portrayals today.

It doesn’t explain its women. It doesn’t redeem them. It doesn’t even particularly centre them in a traditional sense. It just lets them exist in the same heightened, surreal, slightly nauseating world as everyone else—and then pushes them as far as they’ll go.

Spoiler, they go far.

Watching it now, it feels like a strange precursor to the wave of “unlikeable women” we’ve since been encouraged to celebrate (Flea Bag). But where those later characters often come with confession, interiority, a sense of narrative control—Green Wing is more anarchic. Less interested in insight than in escalation. These women aren’t telling you who they are. They’re doing things, often inexplicable, often inadvisable, and the show simply keeps up.

Maybe that’s why it still feels so alive and modern!

There’s something deeply satisfying about watching a show that doesn’t tidy its women. That allows them to be petty, horny, inappropriate, delusional—not as a statement but just because it’s funny.

I love it because it recognises a rarely acknowledged truth: women, given the space, can be just as strange, just as excessive, just as completely deranged as men.

Lulu Simons brings the important topics to the stage and page — like the Spice Girls, and your dad’s holiday pics. 

A proud Welsh, working class stand-up, writer, and performer; her latest show, “Council Estate Gap Year”, debuted to sell out audiences two years in succession for:

Women in Comedy Festival and the inaugural Rik Mayall Festival; earning outstanding reviews.

Passionate about platforming underrepresented people in comedy; Lulu has also taken proactive steps to foster greater diversity by founding TOKEN. Comedy Collective, aimed at supporting and amplifying underrepresented voices on the circuit.

Winner of Best Newcomer, 2025 Women In Comedy Festival.

“A must-see comic — an absolute joy” Culture Warrington (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Canal Street Online: “Lulu reminded us of Victoria Wood in her observational comedy and great comic timing” 

She’s a daft, exciting and ambitious talent.