From Bridesmaids to Bachelorette and Rough Night, countless comedies have brought to life the wild – and sometimes laborious – experience of hen dos, with their mad outfits, muscular strippers, drunken arguments and bonding moments. But what happens when your hen do is interrupted by a unique and unprecedented complication – the end of the world as we know it?
Henpocalypse!, a new BBC Two sitcom beginning next Tuesday, explores that very dilemma, following five hens who are forced to wait out the apocalypse in an isolated holiday cottage in Wales. Emerging from quarantine, and armed with sex toys as spears, they find the male population is almost wiped out and Britain is a hellscape where only the fittest can survive.
“Hen dos are the perfect recipe for comedies,” says the show’s writer, Caroline Moran. “It’s always struck me that there’s a very particular kind of behaviour that can come out on a hen do, a sort of female version of the Lord of the Flies.”
Moran’s characters, all working-class women from the same council estate in Birmingham, represent the archetypal figures one might find on an average hen do.
There’s the bridezilla, whose determination to have the perfect weekend bender drives the others insane; the put-upon chief bridesmaid; the friend whose insistence on wearing unsuitable heels ends with her entire leg becoming infected; the conspiracy theorist with a penchant for drugs; the cousin invited out of pity – and the bride’s mother, a “fearsome battleaxe” who takes charge in the post-apocalyptic world despite forgetting her menopause medication.
“As a writer you want a mismatched group of people, and you often find that on a hen do, because not everybody knows each other and the reasons that people have been invited are varied and interesting,” Moran says. “It is like going into battle sometimes, especially the multistage hen dos where you have to prepare for a number of activities that not everyone will want to do.
“It’s also very expensive, and there can be a certain amount of resentment that goes with it. Then there’s the social capital of who’s organising it and the power structures that arise.”
That dynamic, she adds, was explored in films like Bridesmaids. “Who’s closest to the bride, what that means, the power the bride has at the top of the hierarchy. It’s the perfect grounds for comedy, because it’s women on their own. It’s a temporary matriarchy in a way.”
The writer, whose previous credits include the series Raised by Wolves and Hullraisers, drew inspiration from a number of hen dos she had attended.
“For one I had to organise a last-minute Bronte-themed treasure hunt in Howarth, Yorkshire, at five in the morning because the bride was very into Cathy and Heathcliff, which I don’t think is a particularly good thing to be saying your relationship is like,” she says, laughing. “The day went downhill from there: I was herding this group of women, none of whom I’d met before, and a lot of whom were from overseas and didn’t speak any English. It was all quite tragic. The bride and groom are no longer together.”
During another hen do, she recalls, she was suffering from cystitis and “couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t get antibiotics, so I just had to drink through the pain.”
Henpocalypse!, which is made by Phil Clarke and Jesse Armstrong’s production company, Various Artists, is full of surreal yet almost believable scenes for anyone who’s ever attended a hen party. The only man that survives the apocalypse is a male stripper in gold hotpants who is chained to the hens’ radiator; and Danny Dyer appears to one woman during a moment of crisis and becomes her spiritual mentor.
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“Hen dos are one of the few rituals that we still have for the bride’s transformation from the premarital state to the state of matrimony,” Moran says. “Then capitalism’s got involved, and the expectation that it has to be this unbelievable event. Whenever there’s a high-pressure social situation, and you add alcohol, it can unleash people’s inner demons.
“A weird hierarchy will develop as well, especially if hen dos are over two or three days. And my thinking was: what if it never ended? What if you were stuck with this group of women for ever?”
Dr Laura Minor, a lecturer in television studies at the University of Salford, says the concept of the hen do, or bachelorette party, was a recurring theme in comedies “because it is already a humorous ritual characterised by excessive drinking, performative sexuality – hello, penis-themed novelty gifts – and entertaining activities – see: male strippers and raunchy games”.
The key point of humour, she adds, was when they “go wrong”, which exacerbates the situations that are already not too far from reality. “These female-centric ensemble comedies can serve as a satirical commentary on gender roles as well as the absurd and sometimes superficial aspects of wedding culture. More importantly, they provide a space for women to engage in camaraderie and bonding, to celebrate the highs and lows of female friendship.”
Moran says she was interested in the “pressure on women to get down the aisle and get a ring on your finger. The idea that marriage somehow legitimises you. But if you strip away all of that, what is left when women are alone? They can be a bit more feral.”
Henpocalypse! starts on Tuesday 15 August at 10pm on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer
