Could you face Armageddon armed with just feather boas and penis paraphernalia? That’s the premise behind BBC Two’s Henpocalypse, a sitcom about a bachelorette party derailed by a minor inconvenience – the end of the world.
Callie Cooke stars as chief bridesmaid Shelly and admits she became “quite attached” to her character’s makeshift weapon – a “dildo spear”. “I think I worked with that every day,” she says. " I considered taking it home with me but then I thought, ‘How am I ever going to explain this to people when they come round?’” The dark comedy centres around Brummie bridezilla Zara (Lucie Shorthouse) as her raucous hen party in an isolated Welsh cottage gets underway.
But when a disease that only kills men creates a national emergency, the girls have to survive in Snowdonia alongside Drew their stripper – and possibly the last man standing. “It was refreshing to have these chaotic, hilarious women run riot through the countryside,” the 30-year-old actress says. “It was the first time I’d come across a show about women from the Midlands who weren’t someone’s love interest or in Peaky Blinders.” While Shelly is a devoted friend, she has many demons that come to light after nine weeks of rationing chocolate penises. “Shelly is consumed by her friendship with Zara,” she says. “It’s a story of female relationships and, whether we know it or not, everyone has had some kind of toxic friendship.” Drawing on her own experience of attending hen dos, Callie says it was “the cringier, the better” when filming the show.
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