Filming begins on the second series of Chewing Gum

5 July 2016

At the end of the first series, we saw Tracey and Connor leaving the Pensbourne Estate, dressed only in their pants and walking into the sunset and the unknown. Both had been thrown out of home, Cynthia’s wedding day ended in disaster, Connor lost his job, and their lives were all in a bit of a mess. Things weren’t looking great.

As filming begins on the 6 new episodes of the second series of the multi award-winning CHEWING GUM, creator, writer, producer and star Michaela Coel once again invites viewers to the Pensbourne Estate and into Tracey Gordon’s outrageous, surreal, vibrant and colourful life.

Michaela Coel (The Aliens, London Spy, Black Mirror), winner of the BAFTA Award for Best Female Performance in a Comedy Programme, the BAFTA TV Craft Award for Breakthrough Talent and the RTS Award for Breakthrough and Comedy Performance, returns as Tracey Gordon. Danielle Walters (Kill Your Friends, Some Things) and Kadiff Kirwan (The Vote) return as Candice and her boyfriend Aaron, Susan Wokoma (Crashing, the Inbetweeners 2 and the forthcoming E4 comedy drama Crazy Face) returns as Tracey’s Ludo-loving sister Cynthia. Robert Lonsdale (The Interceptor) plays Tracey’s boyfriend Connor and Olisa Odele (My Parents Are Aliens) returns as Ola. Maggie Steed returns as no-nonsense Esther (Stella, Pie in the Sky) and Shola Adewusi (Quartet, A Long Way Down) returns as Tracey’s mother Joy.

The 6 X 30 series will air on E4 later this year. Chewing Gum is inspired by Coel’s award-winning one-woman play Chewing Gum Dreams. The play premiered at the Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick in 2012 before transferring to the National Theatre in 2014 where it won further acclaim from the press and public alike, with Time Out calling it ‘vital’ and ‘transformative.’ The series is commissioned by Rachel Springett for E4 and is produced by Retort. Nana Hughes and Jon Rolph are Executive Producers. Michaela Coel and John Pocock are Producers. The Director is Simon Neal.

 

Praise for S1 of Chewing Gum

“Ribald and explicit but also fizzing with invention and life.” – The Daily Telegraph

 

“It’s filthily funny. Think of it as a delicious mix of Girls and Peep Show.” – Independent on Sunday

 

“Chewing Gum is beautifully written, its dialogue outlandish and thoroughly believable. This is modern, working-class city life… It’s [also] a refreshingly optimistic world, in which people believe they can achieve anything, whatever their background.” – The Guardian

 

“It’s the freshest comic world on TV since Lena Dunham’s Girls.” – Radio Times

 

“Forget Sex and the City and Girls – THIS is the rudest, realest comedy about young women and their sex lives we’ve seen in ages, and it’s from the remarkable mind of singer, poet and award-winning playwright Michaela Coel.” – Heat

 

“Coel’s voice is one that has been missing from TV in this country; a voice that when you hear it, you wonder why you’ve never heard it before and only then begin to understand what you’ve been missing. She ticks a lot of boxes that don’t get ticked on TV.” – Stylist