'Funny Woman' Season 2's Trailer Introduces BBC Star Sophie Straw

PBS introduced Funny Woman to the American public a year ago, in January 2024. The somewhat awkwardly titled series (based on the Nick Hornby book Funny Girl, necessitating alterations) stars Gemma Arterton (The Critic) as Barabra Parker, 1960s Blackpool Beauty Queen, who has plans to take her success on the beauty circuit and parlay it into a career on television. This being the U.K. in the mid-1960s, that means breaking into the boy's club at the BBC. (As Nolly somewhat failed to teach us, the competition that eventually merged into ITV was far more cut-throat and willing to use every loophole to keep from paying their talent a living wage.)

Season 1 followed Parker's journey as she was transformed into "Sophie Straw" by her greaseball "agent," who then refused to send her on auditions. That forced her to take matters into her own hands, landing a gig as the co-star in a romantic sitcom and falling in love with her co-star. However, when she discovers him cheating, she turns the tables on her leading man and emerges as the star of her own show.

Season 2 opens with Sophie Straw, now the toast of Aunty Beeb's lineup, with a show taped live before a studio audience. However, the law of show business is that you're only as good as your last gig, and when that gig suddenly dries up... well, it's time to find a new frontier to explore. Where else would a massive star with a fantastic wardrobe go but France?