Am I Being Unreasonable?<\/a>, an offbeat comedy thriller about obsessive friendships, women on the edge, a freak accident and a dead cat.<\/p>\nImagine the gnarliest Mumsnet thread come to life and televised, and you\u2019ll get the vibe. \u201cWe were very inspired by reading those [Mumsnet] posts,\u201d laughs co-writer Selin Hizli, on the question of whether the show\u2019s title is an allusion to the parenting website\u2019s most overused phrase. \u201cThose posts are so brilliant,\u201d laughs Cooper. \u201cWomen talking about how awful their marriages are, and all the other women go, \u2018Leave the b*****d.\u2019 They could write that their husband sneezed, and they\u2019d still go, \u2018Leave him!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ask how the series came about, and you get a surprisingly candid answer. \u201cIt was because I was desperately unhappy in my marriage, but didn\u2019t realise it at the time, and then lockdown put this massive spotlight onto it,\u201d says Cooper. \u201cMy daughter had asked me to put a pair of dungarees on a Sylvanian Family squirrel. It was like the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back. I was completely broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, at the time of writing Am I Being Unreasonable?, Cooper and Hizli\u2019s lives very much mirrored their characters\u2019, with both women eventually splitting from their partners (Cooper shares a daughter and son with hers, while Hizli shares eight-year-old twins).<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Daisy says, you don\u2019t realise you\u2019re unhappy until [lockdown] magnifies it,\u201d says Hizli. \u201cWe didn\u2019t realise how much we were missing that really important friendship as a source of comfort and connection. That was the starting point for our writing, and also talking about other female friendships that we\u2019ve had, and how some of them get really toxic and make you doubt yourself more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plot centres around 40-something mum-of-one Nic (played by Cooper), a cantankerous character bored by her marriage and grieving a loss she\u2019s unable to share with anyone else. When Jen (Hizli) arrives in town, the two soon form an alliance fuelled by a shared love of kitchen discos, crushing hangovers and bitching about other mums.<\/p>\n
\u201cNic and Jen are both damaged, but who isn\u2019t?\u201d says Cooper.<\/p>\n