What happens when you put a prefect, an emo, a girl who runs an underground tuck shop, and the most popular girl in school together in detention?
This is no punchline joke, but the premise of the new BBC Comedy Short Proper Ladies , which was released on BBC iPlayer last month. Think The Breakfast Club meets Derry Girls , but with four British Somali teenage girls attending an all-girls Muslim faith school.
The pilot stars British Somali actress Kosar Ali as grungy fan fiction club leader Hani, Ebada Hassan as fashionista Yasmin, Samira Tahlil as eager-to-please prefect Salma, and the comedy’s writer, Sabrina Ali , as self-proclaimed confectionery enterprise CEO Munira.
In the comedy short, Hani, Yasmin, Salma, and Munira find themselves lumped together in after-school detention. They are not friends, but soon decide they need to work together to find a way to get out of detention early. Proper Ladies is the TV adaptation of Sabrina’s highly acclaimed 2023 play Dugsi Dayz , which was staged at the Edinburgh Fringe and The Royal Court Theatre in London. 'Dugsi' is the Somali word for madrassa , where many British Somali children go to learn Qur’an and Islamic studies at least once a week.
“I think the success of Dugsi Dayz helped launch my screenwriting career,” Sabrina, who is based in South West London, tells The New Arab . “That’s when I started developing the play for television with BBC Studios.” Proper Ladies sees Dugsi Dayz transition from being set in a dugsi to an all-girls Muslim faith school. The state-funded school is facing possible closure, and its headteacher, Lady Asha, realises she needs backup in the form of her son to help save the school.
“Her vision is to raise young ladies of tomorrow — proper ladies,” Sabrina explains. “These girls are anything but that, and they’ve taken full advantage of her deteriorating health and old age. They completely run the school now.”
One of the best aspects of the comedy short is that no one ever over-explains themselves. It feels very much like watching a typical day at a Muslim girls’ school.
“They’re all Muslim girls surrounded by other Muslim girls, so why would they have to explain themselves?” Sabrina reflects. “I really wanted that authenticity to come from the girls themselves. As a viewer, you’re simply looking in.”
Sabrina notes that The Breakfast Club was definitely an inspiration, and you can see that reflected in the choice of personalities — from the misfit, to the goody-two-shoes, to the most popular girl at school — much like the character dynamics in the 1985 film. More importantly, however, it was the girls Sabrina grew up with who provided endless stories and inspiration.
“There is so much fun you can have with what goes on in schools,” the playwright recalls. “I didn’t go to an all-girls faith school myself, but the stories I’ve heard from girls who did are hilarious. A lot of my friends said I could use them as case studies. It all felt very St Trinian’s -esque.” Detention descends into total mayhem There are antics galore throughout the short, from a group of Munira’s Year 7 minions staging a protest, to Yasmin setting off the fire alarm so she can use the staff toilets in peace, and the four girls putting laxatives in a teacher’s tea so they can escape detention early.
Comedy, Sabrina adds, is her favourite genre because it allows her to highlight the absurdity and irony of society in a way that never feels forced or contrived. Proper Ladies is bursting with satire, most explicitly in the decision to make the Muslim faith school’s Diversity and Cultural Inclusivity Officer a white woman. Miss Hanal tells the girls that she has completed a two-day course in diversity and inclusivity in Birmingham and is therefore fully qualified for the role.
Her poor cultural understanding and ingrained racism are subtly exposed during a mindfulness exercise.
“Open your heart to all cultures,” she tells the girls. “Breathe in their spices, their courage, their weird little traditions. Exhale any radical thoughts.”
Viewers will recognise Hani as Kosar Ali, who is known for the 2019 coming-of-age drama Rocks as well as the BBC comedy PRU . Meanwhile, headteacher Mr Khan is played by comedian Mark Silcox , who audiences may recognise from Guz Khan’s hit comedy series Man Like Mobeen .
However, the majority of the cast are first-time actors who auditioned earlier this year during an open casting call.
“It was such a surreal experience because when I did a casting call for Dugsi Dayz , there weren’t nearly as many girls auditioning as there were for this show,” Sabrina shares. “There were so many girls who had never auditioned before and had been waiting for an opportunity like this to come along. They kept saying, ‘I’ve always wanted to act. I’ve always wanted to do this.’ That’s how we found Samira (Salma), Ebada (Yasmin), and everyone else. That was a very conscious decision.” Championing British Somali voices on screen The 28-year-old Sabrina is a law school graduate, but after discovering how much she enjoyed writing for stage and screen during the COVID-19 pandemic , she decided to pivot into a creative career.
Recognising how difficult it can be to get a foot in the door in the television industry, Sabrina took every opportunity she could find, including the less glamorous work of being a runner on productions.
“My parents were a little taken aback and asked what my next step was going to be — whether I planned to do my Master’s degree or a training scheme [in law],” she shares.
She continues, “At the time, I felt under pressure to get my foot in the door quickly or have something lined up before they eventually told me I needed to do something more sustainable. But I think that pressure and drive really helped me get to this point, because I felt like I had no other option but to make it in this industry.”
Britain has one of the largest Somali communities in Europe, with 176,645 people identifying as Somali in the UK’s 2021 Census . However, representation on screen and stage remains limited.
“We are a huge part of British culture,” Sabrina points out. “It’s a shame that we haven’t had much visibility, especially when it comes to television and film, because we already have such a huge online presence across social media and platforms like YouTube. We are starting to see a lot more British Somali voices coming through theatre, independent film, and writing. It’s not mainstream yet, but it feels good to know there’s a new wave of talent pushing for more visibility in the arts.”
At the moment, Proper Ladies exists as a comedy short available on iPlayer , the BBC’s online streaming service, with plans to also release it on YouTube. However, Sabrina reveals she already has the entire series mapped out.
The BBC will be monitoring viewing figures to gauge how well the project could perform as a full multi-episode series. This is one of the ways screenwriters and producers from underrepresented communities can showcase their talent, as the BBC often uses comedy shorts as a testing ground before deciding whether to commission a full series.
Previous BBC comedy shorts and pilots that later became fully fledged series include Dreaming Whilst Black and cult favourite Motherland .
Sabrina says the feedback and support she has received from viewers so far has been phenomenal. Now, she must sit tight and make du’aa that Proper Ladies receives the green light for a full series. [Cover photo: Yasmin (Ebada Hassan), Munira (Sabrina Ali), Hani (Kosar Ali), Salma (Samira Tahlil) [Photo courtesy of the BBC]] Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA