Katherine Parkinson teases "quite rude" comedy Spreadsheet
"On my 44th birthday they accidentally scheduled three, four sex scenes."
Comedy series Spreadsheet starring Katherine Parkinson made its debut on Paramount+ back in 2021, but UK viewers will soon be able to watch it when it arrives on Channel 4.
Parkinson plays Lauren, a woman who is on the near-constant pull following the breakdown of her marriage. When she's not fulfilling her duties as a lawyer or helping her two young daughters with their school projects, she's furiously working her way through dating apps with a handy spreadsheet to help her keep track of her many, many suitors.
"It's quite rude, isn't it?" said Parkinson during an interview with RadioTimes.com. "It was a departure for me because I got to be sexually viable. It was nice to lean into that, to be sexually front-footed like Lauren is, because I can be quite coy about those things in life.
"And at the moment I'm in a sitcom on BBC One called Here We Go where you get the sense that my character is not having any sex, so from that point of view the agency that Lauren has is lovely."
She added: "On my 44th birthday they accidentally scheduled three, four sex scenes. I was like, 'This is not how I expected to be spending my birthday'. I'm doing fine for my age, but I'm really not very limber."
For a show with a lot of sex in it, Spreadsheet isn't remotely sexy, something which Parkinson appreciated: "I had a body double but it's not graphic at all, so we didn't really need to [use her].
"I think that's what I like about it. It tells these stories but without being titillating or gratuitous. I didn't feel for a second that there was going to be anything tawdry. And also, there's a lot of focus on her home life and her work relationships. Some of my favourite bits in it are with the guys in the office.
"I also think what's interesting is she's still reeling from a break-up and... Jake [her ex-husband] is settling down more quickly than she had hoped – not to suggest that for women who are sleeping with lots of men it comes from a place of damage, but I think dramatically, it will be interesting [to see what happens] if he finds happiness more quickly than she does."
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Spreadsheet airs on Channel 4 at 10.05pm on Wednesday 18th May. Check out our TV Guide or visit our dedicated Drama hub for the latest news.
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