British comedy star Sally Phillips has criticised the BBC over the “heinous” number of female comedy writers working on its projects.
The 56-year-old, known for her roles in Bridget Jones and Miranda, is best recognised as one of the creators, writers and stars of the Channel 4 sketch show Smack the Pony, one of the first female-orientated comedy programmes on British television.
Phillips speaks at Latitude Festival
Speaking to the Girls on Film podcast at Latitude Festival, Phillips said that while the number of women producing and “doing comedy” had increased in recent years, representation behind the camera was still “not OK”.
Joking that she was “never going to be employed by the BBC again” for calling them out, Phillips continued, pointing out that “the stats on women directing and writing TV comedy are pretty heinous”.
Industry statistics cited
Phillips appeared to reference a 2025 report by Chortle which found that only 11 per cent of all TV comedies were created and written by women, a figure that has not increased since a 2018 study by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.
“We should have more things written and directed by women in general, particularly women of colour,” she said.
“Comedy is really, really dominated by white men, and it’s really hard to break away from that, because if you’re not given chances then you’re not given a chance to fail, actually.”
BBC responds
A BBC spokesperson told The Standard: “The figures quoted are industry wide and do not reflect the BBC’s comedy output.
“We are incredibly proud to work with many brilliant women writers, producers and directors, while recognising there is always more we can do across the industry. We take representation seriously, it should be judged across a full slate and our record on this speaks for itself.”
Phillips, who also starred in I'm Alan Partridge, last year admitted that she considered her inability to be seen as a “serious actress” one of her greatest failures. She revealed that she once cried for “about 15 minutes” in the toilet at a casting director’s house after missing out on a serious part because it was “this thing that I longed to be”.
“I thought I was a serious actress, I did, I thought I was,” she said. “When I was auditioning to play these serious parts, I couldn’t get any traction, couldn’t get anyone interested.
“The minute I started doing comedy I got an agent, I started getting jobs. But I felt somehow that this was a failure of depth, like the gravitas thing, that there’s something about me that is not deep or serious, or received or something.”
