Derry Girls have been left devastated after it was announced the upcoming third series of the hit Channel 4 comedy will be the last.
The show, which follows a group of teenagers growing up in the 1990s of Northern Ireland, stars Nicola Coughlan, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell and Dylan Llewellyn.
The second series of the Channel 4 show was filmed in 2018, but the third season was pushed back due to the pandemic.
In a statement, creator Lisa McGee said it was “always the plan to say goodbye after three series.
She said: “Derry Girls is a coming of age story; following five ridiculous teenagers as they slowly…very slowly…start to become adults, while around them the place they call home starts to change too and Northern Ireland enters a new more hopeful phase – which was a small, magical window of time.
“Derry Girls is a love letter to the place I come from and the people who shaped me.
“It has been an honour to write it and I will be forever proud of everything it’s achieved.
“I’d like to thank the people of Derry and Northern Ireland for getting behind us.
“Thanks also to the team behind the series, the incredible Hat Trick productions and a special thanks to Channel 4 – the channel I grew up watching; the channel that made me want to write comedy and the only channel that could have made our show.
“Who knows if Erin, Clare, Orla, Michelle and James will return in some other guise someday, but for now this is it for us and we’re excited to start filming this series with our incredible cast and crew to hopefully take our loyal fans on one last adventure.”
The news prompted lots of reaction on social media...
Derry Girls first debuted on Channel 4 in 2019, and later gained international appeal when it began streaming on Netflix in other territories.
As well as winning huge critical acclaim, Derry Girls has pulled in massive viewing figures, becoming the most-watched TV series in North Ireland since modern records began in 2002.
Although the show has been away from our screens for over a year, the cast did appear in a special episode of the Great British Bake Off at the beginning of 2020, which quickly descended into absolute chaos.
More recently, Nicola – who plays Claire in the hit comedy – was seen playing Penelope Featherington in the record-breaking Netflix drama Bridgerton.