Sarah Solemani

What if Alan Partridge were a Hollywood hotshot in 2022? This razor-sharp show follows an old-school film producer floundering in a strange new world – and ...

“Let’s see her get her pussy ready!” says Bobby. “You want to see the vagina?” says Cameron, faintly – beautifully – appalled. Chivalry is a quality, precision-engineered piece of work by a duo with extraordinary chemistry, both on- and off-screen, in the writers’ room. Bobby welcomes input from Cameron’s new assistant Ama (Lolly Adefope) on the sex scene she has to reshoot, but moves swiftly on when Ama reckons it would be empowering to have the leading lady (Lark, played by Sienna Miller) be “a squirter”. But she and Bobby unite later to embarrass Cameron as they rework the scene to make it sexy for women as well as men. “Do you want to know why they’re compulsory now?” says Bobby. “Because the men who had the power to stop women being abused chose not to. But, if, in the portrait of a man applying limited intelligence to matters of deep import, Chivalry plays to Coogan’s greatest strengths, it is still so much more. And he is just bright enough to know he’s being left behind as this strange, new landscape emerges, but not bright enough to know how to adapt to it.

The sheer audacious scale of the comedy drama's near-pornographic presentation and profane language is the only thing that threatens to overwhelm the ...

I don’t know whether, in the age of Naked Attraction, Babestation and Nadine Dorries, there are or should be any boundaries around what is seen and heard on TV. But I think Chivalry has helped me find my own boundaries as a viewer. The dialogue in Chivalry is basically an amalgam of barrack-room swearing, porn-movie set directions and the sort of intimate technical terms you might encounter during a gynaecological case conference. Is it still OK? Should the emphasis in the scene be on the pleasure of the Nazi officer (soon to meet his little and bigger death), thus objectifying the woman? The problem with Chivalry isn’t the topical themes, the dry, witty writing or the wonderfully world-weary pairing of Coogan and Solemani. Both have rather cynical, hard-bitten, direct sorts of personalities, despite their divergent outlooks and origins. We also learn that Cameron has slept with the film’s female lead, a French resistance “honey pot” agent, played by Sienna Miller. She conveys the sour energy of someone who finds the whole ethos of her profession demeaning, while simultaneously rebelling against it. The producer, Cameron O’Neill (Steve Coogan), himself somewhat compromised by outdated attitudes, is told to sort it out.

Solemani and Coogan - who co-wrote the series - are fantastic in this tongue-in-cheek, bold take on the film industry in 2022.

#MeToo isn’t an obvious source of humour, and Chivalry never reached for the low-hanging fruit of mocking the movement. The success of Chivalry hinges entirely on the push-and-pull chemistry between Solemani and Coogan, and I could watch their bickering for hours. How does one, for example, make a sex scene in a safe, secure way, and have it still be believable?

This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Advertisement. By the time the MeToo movement swept Hollywood in 2018, it was a subject I'd ...

But we didn’t want to undermine the essence of the movement, which was a confession of pain and trauma that was real and lived. After a lot of theatre roles, I was in the BBC sitcom Him & Her with Russell Tovey, which was a bit of a turning point for me, and after that I had parts in films like Bridget Jones’s Baby. But I always wrote. You have to accept that if you go into certain areas, you’re going to have a target on your back. But in Chivalry Bobby makes the argument that proper connections and becoming more conscious on consent and boundaries can actually lead to more sex, better sex. It doesn’t always have to be something that men seek, women protect, men take and women give. It was a tightrope to walk the whole time: we wanted it to be very funny because by laughing, you can begin to heal. We confront the fear people have about MeToo that they aren’t too keen to go public on, voiced by Catherine Deneuve in a letter that basically called MeToo “the death of sex” – the fear that all the fun and joyous chemistry between the sexes was in danger of being eternally policed, killing flirting, pleasure and sexiness for ever. I couldn’t be the one rolling my eyes and saying, “You silly old sexist, you can’t go around saying that any more!” We both had to be on equal footing, like the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s, all razor-sharp dialogue and biting female ripostes. He was brave enough to take the gloves off and spar with me. I’d moved to LA in 2016 to join the writers’ room for a show called Barry on HBO and during that process its creator and star, Bill Hader, needed me to dig deep on any unsavoury experiences as an actress. It felt like a lot of men were keeping their heads down and hoping the uproar would fade, but Steve, who I’ve known since we worked on another Winterbottom film, The Look of Love, would play devil’s advocate, and we would get into heated debates and make each other laugh. By the time the MeToo movement swept Hollywood in 2018, it was a subject I’d already spent some time reflecting on.

Chivalry - Review of Sarah Solemani and Steve Coogan's #MeToo comedy.

The result is a funny, relevant show bursting with great performances. This is a world in which that is considered normal. He may have been dating a woman half his age, but at least he has the good sense to be embarrassed by it.

CHANNEL 4's new comedy starring Steven Coogan and Sarah Solemani is set to air witha hilarious cast.Here's a look at which stars are set to appear on.

Wanda has been in the film industry for over two decades and will also appear in the new Channel 4 sitcom. Sarah is also known for her roles in the British comedy series Bad Education and The Wrong Mans. The actor will appear in Channel 4's new comedy Chivalry as the character of Cameron.