The best comedy of the decade finally returns to the BBC tonight

“You can’t just write about yourself, it has to feel like it’s about something bigger than you,” Sophie Willian told an audience at the screening of Alma’s Not Normal, series two.

Shortly after calling, press ‘c**ts’. I think was she joking?

But that one sentence encapsulates what makes Sophie one of the most exciting talents the BBC has produced in the last decade, at a time when fostering new talent and new voices is becoming increasingly rare.

Alma’s Not Normal is the rare gem of a comedy that truly deserved the distinction of “the next Fleabag.” Personally, I think that’s much better.

Semi-autobiographical, created, written and starring Sophie, Alma is a chain-smoking, Boltonian free spirit and aspiring actress, partly raised by her grandmother, but mainly in care because her mother is a drug addict with serious mental health problems.

While that should be the basis for a modern tragedy about the dire state of Britain’s healthcare system, it’s also the premise of one of the funniest and smartest shows in recent memory.

The first series won Sophie a Bafta and if you ever meet anyone else who has seen the series, which in my experience is not often enough, they will share the same unbridled enthusiasm.

It’s been four years since Alma instantly became a gay icon, looking like Bagpussin in her pink and white coat, fag in hand, calling everything “fabulous,” with especially camp articulation.

After an agonizing wait, she’s finally back for another six episodes, which Sophie recently confirmed will be her last – unless there’s a Christmas special, which seems likely given the rapturous reception.

When we left Sophie, she turned her back on sex work after landing a good acting job while touring Britain for six months, destined for stardom, Bolton but a distant memory.

Series 2 opens with Alma back from her national tour and discovering that her career is still about to take off. After all, she’s not heading to the Hollywood hills and is instead unemployed again in Bolton.

On the plus side, she has a new set of wheels and finds a cop… who works in the back room of a chippy and feeds on the leftovers.

Alma may still be broke and as close to achieving her dreams as she was six months ago, but a sea change has occurred for the women around her.

Leanne (Jayde Adams), on the other hand, has had a stroke of luck and turned a truck into a lucrative, money-making bar.

Lin is back in the hospital and has turned to witchcraft, which speaks for itself, and Joan has a new pet to keep her busy in Jim (Nicholas Asbury).

There’s been nothing so daring or clever in comedy since Alma’s Not Normal and its return just proves that Sophie Willan is by far the most exciting talent Britain has produced in a nerve-wrackingly long time.

Snappy British comedy that will be talked about for years to come is in short supply. This Country stands out as the only other truly great comedy worth returning to again and again.

Drama is where the money is; it’s where channels feel they will make the biggest profits, but Alma’s Not Normal shows, comedy and drama go hand in hand.

It can be as devastating as it is comic – none more so than in one crushing moment in episode one. I laughed through the pain that is so often lifelike, but almost never felt on screen.

Alma’s Not Normal should have been the start of a new movement in comedy. Actually it should have been the start of different movements in comedy.

It’s refreshingly working class and northern with a touch of Caroline Aherne’s brilliance, still so rare even with the long-lasting success of The Royle Family. It’s led by four equally brash women, each one camp and fierce enough to be immortalized by drag queens across Britain. It’s a dysfunctional girl power anthem from television about four women who unapologetically stand their ground, for better or for worse.

Taking a four-year break between your very first series and the next is brave in itself. Will anyone care about Alma anymore?

Luckily for Sophie, Alma’s Not Normal hasn’t improved since. Nothing even comes close.

If anything, it feels all the more satisfying to be deprived of Sophie’s talent for so long and to find it returning richer, more urgent and more timely, given the long-awaited call for more working-class voices on television.

It doesn’t take guts to invest in the voices of the working class, it just makes sense – Sophie Willian is proof.

Alma’s Not Normal returns tonight at 10pm on BBC One.

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