Don't Mistake Funny Woman for a Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Rip-Off

Eight months after taking its final bow on Prime Video, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel finds itself back in the cultural conversation amid awards season. While the shine has long since come off Amy Sherman-Palladino's comedy, you wouldn't know it from Season 5's lengthy list of accolades: With 14 total nominations, Maisel was the second-most nominated comedy at the Emmys (behind only Ted Lasso), and stars Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein recently nabbed two of the five total slots in the Outstanding Comedy Actress category at the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The renewed interest in Maisel comes at an opportune time for Funny Woman, a British series about one woman's journey from local beauty queen to comedy superstar. (Season 1 aired in the U.K. in 2023 before debuting stateside on PBS last week.) Based on Nick Hornby's bestselling novel Funny Girl, Morwenna Banks' six-episode drama stars Gemma Arterton as Barbara Parker, who, after staring down a grim future as the wife of Blackpool's most handsome butcher, leaves town to pursue her dream of being the next Lucille Ball. Barbara's ascent is marked by obstacles — being a woman in the 1960s comedy scene is hard enough without a heavy northern accent and working-class roots — but her charisma and pluck propel her toward a successful career as a sitcom actress.

While it's tempting to focus on the similarities between the 1960s-set comedies, both of which center on a would-be housewife blasting through glass ceilings and finding her voice as a comedian, Funny Woman is a worthwhile endeavor precisely because of how sharply it diverges from Maisel.

Unlike Midge Maisel (Brosnahan), whose greatest moment of adversity came when she was briefly kicked out of her cushy Upper West Side apartment, Barbara doesn't have a safety net beneath her feet. She doesn't come from generational wealth or a life of privilege; her mother left when she was young, and her aging father George (David Threlfall), who runs a rock candy factory, is unable to retire, despite the risk his job poses to his health. Barbara's greatest hope of making the leap to the middle class is to marry well — so, as her Aunt Marie (Rosie Cavaliero) constantly reminds her, it's best to forget about this comedy business and put those good looks to use before it's too late.

A staid life in Blackpool is hardly what Barbara wants for herself, so she sets off for London, taking viewers' sympathies with her as she works a series of odd jobs before landing a talent agent, Brian Debenham (a practically unrecognizable Rupert Everett). But even as she schemes her way into an audition for a new comedy show — and dazzles producer Dennis Mahindra (Arsher Ali) and the writers (Tom Bateman, Matthew Beard, and Leo Bill) with her comedic timing and all-around silliness — the threat of failure hangs over her like a dark cloud. Barbara has all the charm and beauty one could ask for, but she's still an outsider in this posh, male-dominated world. She has just one shot at stardom, and as the season progresses, it becomes impossible not to root for her as she does everything in her power to take advantage of it.

Though Funny Woman emphasizes the institutionalized sexism and casual misogyny Barbara faces on a daily basis — she adopts the stage name Sophie Straw because Brian believes it will conjure images of "rolls in the hay" among male fans — the real stakes comes as a result of more personal issues, like her financial predicament or her father's ill health. These storylines are far more effective than the show's grand pronouncements about feminism and "making it" in an environment hostile to women (in the premiere, Barbara is sexually assaulted, a graphic act of violence that's forgotten almost immediately), as they reinforce the idea that Barbara's loyalty to her family and her northern background are cornerstones of her identity. Midge may have sacrificed her personal life to succeed as a comedian, but Barbara isn't willing to do the same; she believes there's a way to incorporate her past into her future, putting her in conflict with a supposedly modern Britain that would prefer her to speak and act a certain way.

Interestingly, while the culture clash pushes Banks' series firmly into the drama camp, Funny Woman really comes together in its comedy scenes. Arterton, who's best known for intense, action-heavy roles, leaves it all on the proverbial (and literal) stage, throwing herself into physical comedy and impressions without hesitation. She plays up Barbara's kookiness and naivete without ever punching down, which also becomes the goal of her new TV show Jim & Barbara, an odd-couple sitcom about a snobbish man, played by Bateman, and his Blackpudlian wife.

Arterton and Bateman prove excellent scene partners: Bateman nails the role of the self-important writer/star, and their off-the-charts chemistry sells the believability of Jim & Barbara as an overnight success. Plus, what we see of the sitcom is legitimately funny, even by contemporary standards, so much so that the process of watching these jokes evolve into their final form, in scenes of Barbara and the writers shooting the breeze and teasing one another as they put scripts together, doesn't dull their sparkle.

For five seasons, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel struggled to generate real laughs from Midge's stand-up routine, and the show dragged as a result. (Were we really supposed to believe these middling jokes catapulted her to stardom?) The sitcom at the center of Funny Woman, on the other hand, is just one part of a larger story; it's not the be-all and end-all, but a stop along the way in Barbara's journey. How ironic that it's a drama series that's cracked the code — maybe the key was not trying quite so hard, all along.

Funny Woman Season 1 is streaming in its entirety on PBS Passport, with new episodes airing Sundays at 10:00 PM ET on PBS. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.