Can’t Cope Won’t Cope Picked Up By The BBC

Stefanie Preissner’s  RTE series Can’t Cope Won’t Cope has been picked up by BBC3.

Speaking to RTE Entertainment, Can’t Cope Won’t Cope writer Stefanie Preissner said: “I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to bring the show to a bigger audience especially the Irish people in the U.K. who missed it.

“I’m in the middle of writing season 2 now which is a tricky process so this news is really spurring me in to make a cracking second season for RTE and the viewers.”

Preissner is delighted that the show will air on the BBC3 (which is now online only), and called it a ‘really good sign for Irish film and television abroad.”

The show will return this year for a second series and stars Cork girls Aisling (Seana Kerslake) and Danielle (Nika McGuigan) as two twenty-somethings in a post-austerity Ireland. The show also stars the Guest Editor of our January issue, Amy Huberman.

In her interview in the January issue with IMAGE editor Rosie McMeel, Amy discussed the growing army of female voices on shows like Can’t Cope Won’t Cope helping to redress the gender balance both on and off screen.

“I feel hopeful that the tide is turning,” she said. “What annoys me is the backlash, because people say, ‘We’ve heard you all talk about this before’, but that’s not good enough. Nothing will change without conversation and debate. When I was working on Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope, there was a female writer, female producers and a predominantly female cast. With Striking Out, it’s predominantly female producers, a female director. On the next job, there may be loads of men, but not by design, but because that’s a story they needed to tell. I’ve seen a difference in auditioning too, where the female parts are more rounded. When I started, it was all about going in for the ‘girlfriend role’, and that’s great, as long as you have a proper person to play, because the same can happen to men, but you should feel like you’re playing a human being, and it’s considered. When I was in the States recently, I saw a big poster for a female show and thought, that’s great, but immediately wondered if we were at the turning point, where in ten years’ time, we’ll be saying, ‘Remember when there was nothing for women and we were all talking about it?”

The head of programme acquisition at the BBC, Sue Deeks said: “Can’t Cope Won’t Cope is the perfect mix of humorous, heartfelt performances with fresh, sharp writing that manages to be both laugh-out-loud funny and incredibly poignant.”