Special

Synopsis

One-off special comedy based around the tangled love lives of three women.

Louise is moving in with Joe, the love of her life; Donna has found a rich man with no personality; and Karen has realised that the only thing a woman really wants in life is to make her man happy, so she has found herself a chauvinist.

So everything's sorted, or at least until things start to go wrong. Louise discovers that in actual fact she sort of hates the love of her life and spends more and more time trying to get away from him.

Karen is fine until Billy staggers back into her life and tells her that he's dying. She decides that she's going help him do all the things in life that he wished he done. What she didn't realise was that all these things were to be done on drugs and she is soon sucked back into a world of drunken insanity.

Donna is fine until Karl comes back from Italy. The moment she discovers this she dumps her new rich man, but when she discovers that Karl has returned to marry his Italian girlfriend, she immediately picks the rich man up again and pretends that everything is fine. Donna sees the girlfriend with someone else, but is told that they are having an open relationship. Donna is horrified at what Italy has done to the man she once loved.

Things come to a head when Joe, misreading Louise's reticence as love, invites her into a hot-air balloon and promptly asks her to marry him. She turns him down.

Karen finds out that Billy isn't really dying, while Donna tells Karl that she's come to terms with his open relationship.

The show ends with a wedding, a puppy in a hospital room and the cliffhanger of whether Karl gets on a plane and leaves Donna's life forever.

Related Links

• BBC Comedy Blog: Sharon Horgan on writing The Pulling Special

Credits

Donna

Sharon Horgan

Karen

Tanya Franks

Louise

Rebekah Staton

Karl

Cavan Clerkin

Tanya

Juliet Cowan

Martin

Paul Ritter

Stephan

Tobias Menzies

Greg

Tom Brooke

Oleg

Andrew Brooke

Billy

Paul Kaye

Joe

Steve Jackson

Sabina

Monica Nappo

Dolphin guy

Spencer Jones

Registrar

Romy Baskerville

Director

Tristram Shapeero

Producer

Jemma Rodgers

Scriptwriter

Sharon Horgan

Scriptwriter

Dennis Kelly

Broadcasts

1. Sun 17 May 2009
   21:00
   BBC Three
2. Mon 18 May 2009
   00:15
   BBC Three
3. Mon 18 May 2009
   23:45
   BBC Three
4. Tue 19 May 2009
   02:45
   BBC Three
5. Wed 20 May 2009
   04:20
   BBC Three
6. Thu 21 May 2009
   00:40
   BBC Three
7. Fri 22 May 2009
   22:35
   BBC Three
8. Sat 23 May 2009
   02:20
   BBC Three
9. Thu 28 May 2009
   21:00
   BBC Three
10. Fri 29 May 2009
    00:20
    BBC Three
11. Sat 12 Dec 2009
    22:40
    BBC Two (except Northern Ireland (Analogue), Wales (Analogue))