'I felt it was done': Lisa McGee was happy to end Derry Girls after three series
Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee is glad that she got the chance to end the acclaimed Channel 4 sitcom on her own terms.
Lisa McGee felt that it was the right decision to end Derry Girls after three series.
The 45-year-old writer created the acclaimed Channel 4 sitcom – about a group of teenagers growing up in Northern Ireland during the 1990s – and is glad that she brought the show to a close on her own terms in 2022.
Lisa told the i newspaper: "You don’t often get that choice, working in TV. Normally that's down to the channel. But I felt it was done. And I never changed my mind."
Derry Girls was set during the final years of The Troubles – with the final episode centred on the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 – and Lisa confessed that she felt "a lot" of pressure as she became an unofficial spokesperson for the city of Derry.
She recalled: "At one point I had to say to my agent: 'Why am I being asked to go on Question Time? I'm a comedy writer!'
"You can get swept up in the idea: oh maybe I should have something to say. But I don't have anything to say. I mean, I said what I have to say in the show. It was stressful, writing that last episode. But I'm very proud of it."
Lisa has created the upcoming Netflix series How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, about three friends who investigate the death of a former schoolmate, and explained that she based the lead characters on the Spice Girls.
The writer said: "Everything in my life is about the Spice Girls.
"People are much more complicated in real life. But for a show like this to work, you need to know: this is the moral one, really religious but conflicted about that because she's gay. This is the married mum with this nice house who doesn't want her life to blow up because it's a good life. You have to have these types and then you can mess them up a bit."
McGee explained that her career has been aided by the fact that she feels as though she is an eternal 15-year-old.
She said: "I mean, I do know I'm not. I'm not a mad person. But I do just feel as silly and brand new as I did when I was that age.
"I've come to love that about myself. I used to wish I could be a bit more sophisticated or whatever. But being so connected to the intensity of that young person inside me is quite good for the work.
"Drama is about taking a truthful feeling and pushing it to the extreme. Like: what if things are a hundred times worse?"
