Premiere date announced for final season of ‘Derry Girls’
Channel 4 have confirmed that the long-delayed final episodes begin next month
By Joe Goggins
Channel 4 have finally announced a premiere date for the long-delayed final season of ‘Derry Girls’, and shared a first-look teaser.
The Irish comedy wrapped filming just before Christmas last year, after COVID-19 restrictions had caused its shoot to be continually pushed back. Now, the long-awaited debut of the show’s third season has been confirmed for April 12 at 9:15pm.
In addition, a 72-second teaser clip has been posted to YouTube. In it, a visit to the local video rental store for the titular girls descends into a debate over whether or not Mel Gibson’s costuming in ‘Braveheart’ constitutes him being a drag queen. Fan favourite Sister Michael makes a brief appearance, too, hobbling in on crutches – having apparently been involved in an altercation.
The news comes after series star Nicola Coughlan, who plays one of the show’s central characters in Clare Devlin, confirmed earlier this month that she will have less of a prominent role than in previous seasons this time around, owing to the COVID delays meaning that production ultimately clashed with the filming of Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’, in which she appears as Penelope Featherington.
“We were meant to film ‘Derry Girls’ in January 2021,” she told a number of press outlets, including Digital Spy, whilst promoting season two of ‘Bridgerton’. “And I was totally free and they decided to push it again. And that caused me insane stress because I was on [what] in the industry is called first call. So it means you have to go and do the show that you’re on first call to, which was ‘Bridgerton’.
“And I was like ‘Guys, can we just film it?’” Coughlan went on. “And they were like, ‘No, we’re gonna wait.’ And I was like, ‘oh’, so [there had to be] compromises happen in the script of Derry Girls. It was devastating to me because I wanted to be in all of this. But compromises had to be made. they had to cut down my role somewhat, which was hard. Really, really hard. But I think, you know, the fans of the show are going to be happy. I think it’s a really nice sign-off for the show.”