The Change Series Two Press Pack

Introduction

Bridget Christie’s critically acclaimed comedy series, The Change, produced by Expectation, returns to Channel 4 on Thursday 27th March. 

The BAFTA-nominated comedy is created, written by, co-directed and stars the multi-award-winning stand-up comedian, actor, and writer Bridget Christie. Mackenzie Crook (Detectorists, The Office, Pirates of the Caribbean) also co-directed.

The star-studded cast returning to the Forest of Dean are Susan Lynch playing Eel Sister Agnes; Tanya Moodie playing DJ Joy; Liza Tarbuck playing Linda’s older, domineering sister Siobhain; Jim Howick as The Verderer; Jerome Flynn as Pig Man; Paul Whitehouse as Tony and Omid Djalili is back as Linda’s husband Steve. Laura Checkley (King Gary, Detectorists) joins the new series as Eel Sister Theresa.

At the start of series two, Linda (Bridget Christie) has got some explaining to do. Faced with the repercussions of the lies she’s told the forest community, along with losing the Mother Tree, and the arrival of husband Steve who has come to bring her home, Linda's future in the forest looks uncertain. But she’s already come a long way since being mother/wife/homemaker Linda Jane Jenkins of Swindon, and her journey is far from over. She may have only been Eel Queen for a day, but something’s changed in Linda which means she’s not done yet – in fact she’s only just started. But little does she realise what a huge impact this decision will have on the town…and Steve.

The Change series two was commissioned by Charlie Perkins, Head of Comedy and Laura Riseam, Commissioning Editor for Comedy at Channel 4. The series is produced by Expectation and executive producers are Bridget Christie, Nerys Evans and Morwenna Gordon. The producer is Lisa Mitchell.

BBC Studios, who have a minority investment stake in Expectation, are handling international distribution of the series.

Episode Synopsis 

Episode 1
Linda has to face the fury of the town and admit to lying about her real identity. But Linda tells Steve that being Eel Queen has changed something. Her journey isn’t over.

Following ‘Forest Rules’, Linda has to face a trial and until then, is ejected from town and banned from the caravan by the Eel Sisters who are still furious with Linda. 

Meanwhile, a third Eel Sister appears on the scene. Theresa’s sceptical about Linda who’s clearly been causing ripples while Theresa’s been incarcerated in the local jail… 

The town gather for the trial and during her defence, Linda mentions her ledgers. It’s a moment of recognition for the women. Linda is pardoned and life returns to normal. Another baffling forest ritual. 

After settling back into the caravan, Linda stumbles upon a book in the forest. The Malleus Maleficarum, with an inscription from Fayther to Jim – ‘keep the faith’. 

Linda ends the day with Tony who’s struggling with news of a woman winning a comedy competition. Surely women aren’t as funny as men?? As Linda sips her pint, she sees a group of women across the room, looking at her and whispering about ‘Linda’s Ledgers’. Something is afoot… 

Episode 2 
A little time has passed – Linda has got temporary work washing up at the Eel Café (well, at least she’s being paid to do it now) and is back in the caravan. But news of Linda’s ledgers has started to spread across the town, and the women are asking questions… the first seeds of a revolution are being sown.

Back at home, meanwhile, Steve is trying to find his new purpose, and tells the lads that he’s planning a trip to Turkey for a bit of a makeover. And we see a put-upon Siobhain in her own domestic turmoil – she might not agree with Linda’s chore revolution, but maybe something is changing in her. The final straw is when Siobhain receives an unwelcome phone call from her ex. Something changes in her demeanour – this is a side of her we haven’t seen before. 

Linda is doorstepped by Janet and Judith, who are keen to know more about how the ledgers ‘work’. A confused and reluctant Linda tries not to get involved, but she later finds her work is interrupted by queues of women wanting to her advice about starting their own ledgers and what constitutes a chore. Laughing at their jokes? Hand jobs?? 

At the Eel Café, the Eel Sisters are struggling with dwindling eel numbers and trying to think of innovative ways to diversify their menu. Linda tries to convince them to explore mushroom vegan eels – a concept that the sisters are unsure but are willing to try. 

(As Linda settles into this next phase of her journey in the forest, across the next few episodes, we see her connecting with the land in a different way. Having read The Mother Tree (which we saw her reading in Series 1, Episode 4) she’s starting to understand the importance of the mushrooms, the mycorrhizal networks beneath the soil and starting to make connections between nature and humanity – the cycle of life. We see this through various cutaways from Episode 2 onwards. There’s something about Linda here which feels deeply rooted to the forest.) 

For the Verderer, the dwindling eel numbers are a sign that the women of the town are upsetting the natural order of things. From the sisters deciding to crown an Eel Queen instead of an Eel King, to Linda encouraging the wives to rebel… the Verderer feels that something very unnatural is happening in the town and the women must be stopped. At all costs.

Linda goes foraging for mushrooms and in doing so, is led by them to a familiar place, where in her childhood she saw a couple having sex…

She ends the day in the pub, where the women of the town are starting to assemble, having downed tools at home. Wearing ‘Je Suis Linda’ t-shirts and dominating the pool table. Linda joins Tony who reveals that he’s been plagued by lice but is happily hosting them on his body to ‘remind me I have feelings’. 

At the end of the episode, Linda is back in her caravan and there’s a furious knock at the door. Siobhain has arrived – in full leathers despite having driven there in the Corsa – and has come to stay. Siobhain’s done with fighting, and she wants a bit of Linda’s freedom. ‘I want a bit of what you’ve got!’

Episode 3
The chore revolution has now gripped the town, and the women are taking action and demanding chore renumeration for the time they’ve been logging in the their ledgers. The Verderer is obviously furious at this turn of events.

Linda, meanwhile, is being inundated with texts from the women of the town asking her increasingly intimate questions about her ledgers. It turns out that the Eel Sisters have been posting her number around town to stop the women from doorstepping Linda at work. 

Initially Linda doesn’t want anything to do with it. But across this episode she goes from rejecting her role in the women’s revolution, to realising the power that she’s unleashed in the universality of what her ledgers have unlocked in the women of the town. 

Linda is also furious at Siobhain for turning up. But Siobhain explains that her ex-husband’s new girlfriend is pregnant (the call from ep 2), after Siobhain sacrificed having children herself because he didn’t want them. To add to her fury, her mother-in-law is still living with her as the new girlfriend didn’t want her living with them. Siobhain is quite rightly devastated and has had enough, and now wants to reconnect with the person she was in Ibiza, 1997. Linda just wants her to find her own adventure away from the forest. 

Linda stumbles upon an old photograph of three young girls – it’s the Eel Sisters as children and something clicks. She’s met them before as a child. At the same time she saw the couple having sex in the bushes… she also spots a pair of battered old yellow boots in the corner of the café which also play into the hazy memories that are starting to cement in her mind.

At the eel café, the dwindling eel numbers are putting the sisters’ business in crisis so Linda comes forward with a suggestion of making vegan mushroom eels. Anges and Theresa are sceptical but agree to letting her try one batch. 

Siobhain, meanwhile, is living her best life, having debauched nights down the pub with the men of the town and even ending up in bed with Tony… much to Linda’s horror who wakes up beside them in bed. 

But a conversation with Pig Man helps her try to make sense of all the change that Linda’s facing, with the women’s strike and the increasingly unnerving memories which have been surfacing. He convinces her to listen to the mushrooms… 

Back at home, Steve has returned from his trip to Turkey, complete with hair plugs and new teeth. But the guys down the pub aren’t convinced…

Of course, the Verderer’s campaign is now in full swing and launches a chauvinist attack against women. Linda is livid. The fire in her belly is ignited and she decides to gladly accept the role that the women of the town have thrust on her. 

As the episode ends, we cut between Linda in a tattooist’s chair, and the Verderer. The buzz of the needle intercut with the silence of him standing in his bedroom, with his back to us. As he turns, we see that he’s wearing Fayther’s codpiece, we cut to Linda and see the words that have been inked onto her arm… ‘may all your transitions be joyful’…

Episode 4 
Some time has passed… the women are on strike, and the Verderer’s campaign against the ledgers is in full swing. The town is more divided than ever.

Inspired by Wages for Housework campaign in the 70s and the Icelandic Women’s Strike, a fully politicised Linda has created the Housework Action Group (HAG) and the women of the town have now given up all chores. In response, the men appeal to the Verderer (who wears the codpiece everywhere he goes now), who assures them they will prevail against the women. 

Linda has embraced the idea of the leader of the women’s strike and explains to the women of the town what her plan is – a redistribution of labour in the homes, compulsory training for the men on pulling their weight in the home, and financial compensation for lost time. Janet, who works on the local council and who has become a key part of Linda’s campaign, has an idea… 

And while the division in the town has fuelled the Verderer’s natural passion for vitriolic discourse, we see a brief moment of radical honesty from him. As he starts his radio show, he admits to feeling sad and empty – his loneliness is palpable. We see a different side to him in this moment. But we then see that the ‘on air’ sign isn’t on. He might admit his depression to himself briefly, but then he puts his mask back on, flicks the ‘on air’ switch and his ranting continues. 

While the strike is a good distraction for Linda, the recurring flashbacks to an incident that happened to her as a young girl and which she has supressed ever since continue – it was when she and Siobhain stumbled upon their mother having sex in the bushes with a man who wasn’t her father. In this memory, she was with Siobhain but there were also two girls in the forest, looking on from a distance. While making vegan mushroom eels, she overhears Carm and Ag talking about the Watkins family’s webbed toes, prompting a terrifying realisation for Linda about who she really is. 

Meanwhile Siobhain stumbles upon a half-dressed Pig Man down at the baptism lake and is drawn to his manly arms. Linda interrupts the encounter to confront Siobhain about her webbed toes. Siobhain reluctantly admits that she knew their mother had had a long-running affair and always suspected she and Linda had different fathers. But it’s Linda who joins the dots and realises the truth about her parentage. She’s half Eel Sister. Linda is furious with Siobhain for not telling her and wants Siobhain out of her life. 

Linda has a lot to get her head around. This revelation has blown her mind. 

Back at the Eel Café, Agnes and Carmel are serving up Linda’s vegan mushroom eels to the men, who are wolfing them down eagerly. This might just be the solution to their eel crisis…?

And down at the pub, the men of the town are leafing through their wives’ abandoned ledgers, trying to work out how to get on top of the housework. They are struggling and out of their depth. Well, most of them are. The Verderer comes in and is livid that the men are reading this feminist propaganda. He furiously takes the ledgers and burns them outside. 

A confused and overwhelmed Linda crosses paths with the Verderer as he is storming out of the pub but before she can make sense of what he’s doing, she receives an urgent phone call from Carmel. There have been some unfortunate side-effects for the men who ate the vegan eels. It turns out that unbeknownst to Linda, the mushrooms were hallucinogenic, and the men of the town have been spiked. 

Episode 5
It’s the following day and it’s carnage at the Eel Café in the aftermath of the spiking of the men. The Verderer is livid, having decided that Linda and the Eel Sisters are witches deliberately using witchcraft and poisoning the men. Verderer’s angry rhetoric starts to echo that of the witch hunts, and he quotes from Malleus Maleficarum to back up his argument.

Meanwhile, Siobhain has left the forest, explaining in a brief note to Linda that she’s off to Ibiza. 

Linda is listening in to the Verderer’s show and picks up the copy of the Malleus Maleficarum which she found by the tree stump in Episode 1 as he rants. The parallels to the witch trials means that this rift cuts very deep in the community, and raises some dark, troubling beliefs. 

But before she can respond to the Verderer. Linda has some big news to impart to the Eel Sisters. They all have their own recollections of that day in the forest when they all witnessed Fayther and Linda and Siobhain’s mother having sex. The revelation of who Linda really doesn’t come as a huge shock to the sisters. It’s not the first time they’ve discovered a new half sibling, and probably won’t be the last. The moment is broken by a call from Janet and Linda happily leaves the underwhelming moment with her new half sisters. 

Janet and the Housework Action Group explain to Linda that the eel spiking has caused even more of a rift between the men and the women in the town. But she also has good news about the chore benefit – she’s managed to siphon funds to cover the cost. They also set household training in motion, with Pig Man leading the wiping workshops. 

In an unexpected act of kindness, Carmel and Agnes invite Linda, as their new half-sister, to an annual ‘Dumb Supper’ they hold to mark the deaths of women killed in the witch hunts. Fayther had brought them up on the wretched words of the Malleus Maleficarum and this was their way of reclaiming the stories of these women and making right by them. 

The evening is beautiful. The supper is held inside the Eel Café. Candles and sage burn and places are set for the ghosts of the murdered women. It’s hushed and poignant and moving. We see the ghosts of these women – the women who we’ve only caught glimpses of in the pre-titles and fleeting flashbacks until now. 

Cut to the Forest FM Café and The Verderder is urgently arming a gang of some of his ardent followers with torches, and messages of hate and violence. His anger has bubbled over, he is declaring war and he knows that the only way to stop the women’s revolt is to cut it off at the source – Linda. 

Back at the Eel Café, the mystical hush is broken. The women hear angry voices approaching, and drums beating. Suddenly the door bursts open and the Verderer storms in, accompanied by the gang of men, holding torches and threatening the women…

But as the Verderer starts to rant and threaten, and as the spirits start to work their magic, the men lose their nerve and soon it’s just the Verderer standing there. But for Linda the Verderer has crossed a line in the sand and she’s furious that the sisters’ beautiful supper has been so violently interrupted. She takes a rolling pin and whacks him across the head, knocking him out cold. The three women carry on their supper, over the Verderer’s inert body.

 Episode 6
As the episode starts, Agnes and Carmel are digging a hole behind the Eel Café but it’s quickly revealed that it’s for the codpiece, and the Verderer is alive, red-faced and furious, tied up to a tree, wearing the Scold’s Bridle – the head brace that used to be put on women who were deemed to talk too much. 

Joy announces that following on from last night’s events, the Verderer has lost his fight thanks to a vote of no confidence from the men and the women have won, the strike is over. Mandatory training for the men and chore benefit from the women are no longer just pledges on a manifesto…

We see Linda walking through the forest, now understanding her own lineage and why she was drawn back here. She passes the Mother Tree stump and spots a small shoot coming out of the trunk. This discovery is huge for her. Suddenly everything falls into place and it gives her an idea for restoring hope in the town… she returns to the Eel Café to tell the sisters her plan to hold a celebration at the tree stump to recognise the cycle of life. 

Linda approaches the Verderer, still tied up at the tree, and confronts him about the Malleus. He’s clearly devastated at the news that Linda is Fayther’s child, when he imagines himself as the rightful heir, but refuses to back down. 

Linda releases him and the Verderer rushes back into town to get on the radio to rally the men. But it’s only when he takes to the airwaves that he realises that he’s lost the support of his usual fans. Word has spread that he’s taken it too far. The phone-in lines are dead, and he can see life outside the café window returning to normal. He’s found himself on the wrong side of history. He might not have changed his views, but when he’s just shouting into the void, he’s lost all his power. 

Linda goes to see Pig Man and they talk about the mushroom’s role in the cycle of life, inspired by what fungi can teach us about being sure of their destiny, or their purpose in life. 

Our key ensemble - the Eel Sisters, Joy, Pig Man, Ryan, and a reluctant Verderer – meet at the Mother Tree. It has been decorated with beautiful, foraged items from the forest. 

Linda makes an impassioned speech about 

Accepting ourselves for who we are, and how we all have the power to make change, just like the fungal networks beneath our feet. And to live well, we have to accept that death is a natural part of the cycle of life. 

We pan out from the circles in the wood of the stump, to the circles of foraged leaves and twigs and moss around the tree, and the circle of people around the stump. 

As we pan up from the scene, we see that there is a just-visible stone circle surrounding the tree stump. This tree has clearly been a significant spot for hundreds of years… 

Our final scene sees business as usual at the Eel Café, with Daniel Johnston’s track continuing over the action. 

But things are changing. The Eel Sisters have decided to take a leaf out of Linda’s book and go on their own adventures, handing the reigns over to Linda for a few weeks. Linda is wearing Mayther’s overalls, her hair in a plait, as she makes her way up from the water with a bucket and waders… we see the sign, serving Vegan Eels and Mash… 

But as we pull away from this bucolic scene, we hear the trundle of plastic wheels on the stoney path. A sweaty, out of breath Steve (with his Lego man hair plugs and Turkish teeth) is approaching, with the kids and luggage in tow. Linda looks up… ‘What. The. FUCK?!’