Rose Matafeo’s Starstruck Shows How Amazing RomComs Can Be… When They’re Written By Women

Joe Lycett forgive me - last night I shunned The Great British Sewing Bee, after casually deciding to check out BBC Three comedy Starstruck around 8pm... and only emerging three hours later when I'd consumed the WHOLE ADDICTIVE SERIES in tears.

If you've missed the social media hype, Starstruck is BBC Three's latest half-hour comedy breakout show - all available on iPlayer (and, as mentioned, easily consumed within a good telly evening/Sunday hangover) or airing on Mondays at 10.45pm on BBC One.

The show is written by New Zealand comedian Rose Matafeo and her best friend, the comedy performer and writer Alice Snedden - it's directed by Karen Maine (who worked on Obvious Child, also great). Rose's Jessie is a 28-year-old Londoner, making ends meet with various casual jobs, living in a rental (a house split into nine) with her best friend and 'enjoying' all the 'romantic' ups and downs that brings (fuckboy Dan and a canal boat one night stand are some high/lowlights). In the opening scenes, a New Year one-night-stand turns out to be actually huge movie star, Tom (Nikesh Patel). The series plays out, speedily but with a keen understanding of the moments that matter, over a year as the pair come in and out of each other's lives.

A sucker for a new, good romcom (honestly, trying to find a good one on Netflix I've not seen on an evening is the bane of my life), it was no surprise to me that I fell deeply for Starstruck. The show brilliantly captures that stomach churning ups and downs and maybes and missed opportunities and magic moments and hellish counterparts and worst-possible-timed-reunions that dating in a big city can involve. There are moments that are seriously funny, moments that are seriously sexy and moments that are seriously gut-punching.

But recalling some of the stand-out moments of the series, it's clear that Starstruck's magic lies in the female centre of its production.

I'd argue there are some Fleabag 'KNEEL' moments in there - another great example of women knowing what women want when it comes to stomach-fluttering.

I don't want to spoil some of the best bits but there's some period sex chat (twice actually) that manages to be relatable, funny - and a bit make-you-flush/do an airpunch sexy. And there are a lot of weird jokes between the pair too that make for better banter than many traditional meet-cutes and dates. Maybe it's only me who found a comment about Scarlett Johansson wearing Jessie's skin irresistibly romantic in its delivery and meaning - but I'm guessing not.

Some reviews have made much of the central premise - a big movie star falling for a 'normal' girl being unrealistic or a 'fairytale', damning it (I feel) with faint praise, by suggesting the great script, laughs and performances 'carry' the plot.

But sorry, haven't enough of our romcoms been based on masculine cosplay of what romance is? Bumbling book shop owners catching the eye of Hollywood starlets! Well off women loving the poor boy (take your pick from The Notebook to Titanic)! Messy women being straightened out by 'nice guys'! Or Messy men being babysat and pulled into adulthood by amazing women! The career girl shown there's more to life by a handsome love! (Somehow in all three of those scenarios, the woman's role seems less than tempting). Oh there's the ugly girl, picked out by the High school jock, of course!

Some might say Starstruck reads like feminist fanfiction - the Hollywood guy falling for the normal girl. Especially as there's barely a mention of her size, looks, job prospects, seemingly mad best friend... Or if they're mentioned, taken with stride and in equal measure to the man's faults. But isn't it time we had some fiction of any kind from the other side? And that characterisation is in itself sexist and an example of what we in a patriarchal TV world have come to expect the story to hinge on. There is one great joke about Jessie and some paparazzi and the way they handle the differences between the two characters' worlds is smartly and simply done, without falling into the traps of other romcoms about characters from 'different sides of the block'. Is it always realistic? Maybe not - but why is that the standard for this story, not others? And importantly, in Starstruck it's never suggested either character has to 'overlook' any physical or societal elements of each other - in the moments and things that pull them apart, they each have their part to play in getting things spectacularly wrong and right.

Comparisons to Richard Curtis' Notting Hill seem clear - movie star and normal person, the weird friends, the trouble-making but loveable flat mate (I loved flatmate Kate, played by Emma Sidi, as a perfect, but somehow different 'kooky friend'), the clashing of two worlds, aimless walks through a London most of us recognise as a bit... rose-tinted and geographically dodgy. But when you match up what the two think is romantic, maybe it's just the passage of time, but Starstruck comes out as more real to the dating world and what women find romantic - in the real world and in fiction. And yes, maybe that is a fantasy about a one-night-stand turning out to be a huge Hollywood star, rather than a huge mistake.

There's a place in my rom-com-loving heart for them both, don't get me wrong. But for now, no spoilers, but I'll take moments on public transport and love stories equally driven (and messed up) by two people, over speeches by girls, standing in front of boys, asking them to love them.

Starstruck is available on BBC Three now and is on Mondays at 10.45pm on BBC One.