A new series of the Romesh Ranganathan sitcom Avoidance is coming to BBC One. Jonathan (Romesh Ranganathan) is back and he’s reinvented himself. He may have a new body, a new hobby, and a lot of lycra, but he’s still stuck avoiding conflict and all the mess that causes. Jonathan is determined to win back his ex-partner Claire (Jessica Knappett) and rebuild his family and make son, Spencer (Kieran Logendra) happy. However, any chance of their love rekindling is complicated by new love interests Brett (Matthew Lewis) and Megan (Aisling Bea). Meanwhile, Jonathan’s sister, Dan (Mandeep Dhillon) and her wife Courtney (Lisa McGrillis) are expecting a baby and feel anything but ready.
Episode 1 will air on Friday 5 April at 9.30pm on BBC One and all six episodes will be available as a boxset on BBC iPlayer.
Read an interview with Aisling Bea below
What can you tell us about the new series of Avoidance?
I don’t want to give too much away, but I can say that my character has a sling! She didn’t originally have one, but I got shoulder surgery the day before we started filming so we have worked a sling into the character! It sort of worked naturally actually quite well given the storyline.
What made you want to join Avoidance for series 2?
Romesh Ranganathan! I love Rom and this is our third thing we've done together, we did a little comedy short for iPlayer about eight years ago now – I think that was one of the first things Romesh was making, and then we were briefly together in the first iteration of Jo Brand’s show ‘Damned’.
Working with Rom has in all honesty surpassed my expectations in terms of him as an actor and what incredible range he has which has been really lovely to see. The other big revelation has been the rest of the cast obviously, but also Benjamin Green our brilliant director who is so incredibly kind and lovely and this job has done my heart the world of good. Jessica Knappett is also a very close pal, she is stunning and an amazing writer on this as well, so it’s been great to pop in with all these guys.
How was filming with the cast for the show? Have you worked with any of them previously?
My first day on set was a bit of a surreal experience, everyone was really funny on set. Mandeep Dhillon (Dan) and Lisa McGrillis (Courtney) are the kindest, most brilliant, funny, great people. It’s just been a really warm, happy experience to be honest doing the show and I feel very lucky to have been part of it.
What was your highlight from filming with Romesh and the rest of the cast?
I think the smaller scenes with myself and Romesh were really lovely, because we’ve been pals and worked together for so long but we haven’t had a lot of one on one and when you’re on a set filming, there’s lots of down time in between takes. So it was just nice to get a bit closer as pals really on this, so that’s been a lovely part of it which I didn’t expect!
Do you have any funny moments from filming?
I hope I helped create some of the funny moments on set! Life for me is a drama so I never really experience anything funny. There’s a scene where Romesh does a bit of musical singing and dancing and it was pretty intensely funny, but I will say that Romesh probably made me laugh every single day. We probably couldn’t/shouldn’t repeat most of our jokes it was definitely a lot of fun all the same.
Pictured: Megan (Aisling Bea) (Image: BBC/Rangabee)
Interview supplied by BBC
