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Bad Salsa: The Complete Series 1-3
Bad Salsa: The Complete Series 1-3
Mar 14, 2026 7:06 PM

Author:Kay Stonham,Natasha Little,Camille Coduri,Sharon Rooney,Jessie Cave,Full Cast

Bad Salsa: The Complete Series 1-3

All ten episodes of the BBC radio comedy about three women who embrace the world of salsa while adjusting to life after cancer

After their treatment for ovarian and breast cancer, Chippy is mad, Jill is sad and Terri is definitely dangerous to know! Seeking to regain their zest for life and love, they throw themselves into dance classes at Bad Salsa, the club where everyone knows your name but no-one knows your prognosis.

As they try to deal with the many obstacles on the road back to normality - or at least, a 'new normal' - the three friends must get to grips with their own particular aftershocks, and face their own fears. Their brush with mortality has given them all a fresh perspective, and changed their outlook, desires and expectations. So when it comes to the challenges of everyday life - boring marriages, troublesome children, difficult workmates and infuriating parents - will they try and preserve the pre-cancer status quo, or, in Terri's words, say 'sod it all' and 'go for it'?

Created by comedy writer/performer Kay Stonham, this groundbreaking comedy about salsa, survival and staying strongstars Natasha Little as Jill, Camille Coduri as Terri and Sharon Rooney and Jessie Cave as Chippy.

Production credits

Written by Kay Stonham

Produced by Alison Vernon-Smith (Series 1 and 2) and Katie Tyrell (Series 3)

A BBC Studios production

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 7-28 July 2014 (Series 1), 13 January-3 February 2016 (Series 2), 23-30 August 2017 (Series 3)

Cast

Terri - Camille Coduri

Chippy - Sharon Rooney/Jessie Cave

Jill - Natasha Little

Marco - Doc Brown/Derek Elroy

Gordon - Andrew Obeney

Colin - David Cann/Chris Pavlo/Martin Trenaman

Georgie - Emily Chase

Tim - Matt Houlihan

Sara - Antonia Reid

Chippy's Mum/Corinne - Kay Stonham

Elaine/Consultant 2 - Ayesha Antoine

Georgie - Emily Chase

Joel - Joe Johnsey

Marnie/Dancer - Jessica Turner

Consultant 1 - Chris Pavlo

Barman - Leo Wan

Ann - Kerry Gooderson

Assistant - Philip Fox

Shop assistant/Celebrant - Kerry Gooderson

Reviews

A middle-aged film producer, a novelist with writer's block and a glamorous young actress come together to make a Swinging Sixties movie in this jaunty page-turner. But everyone is living a double life. Even names can't be taken on trust. Full of neat phrases and quirkily funny scenes, it's an elating read

—— The Times, Best Paperbacks of 2021

What could be more reassuring in troubling times than a new William Boyd novel? Trio is immensely readable, its descriptions full of light and colour, its humour spot on, its mood a perfect mix of frolicsome and melancholy

—— Sunday Telegraph

An absorbing novel about lives spiralling out of control and the drastic measures required to right them

—— Economist

The characters are wonderfully written and I loved escaping to the gossipy world of the film set

—— Good Housekeeping, Book of the Month

Boyd keeps the plot racing along, yet for all the twists, the real delight is in William Boyd's wry portrait of a bygone age . . . Boyd's usual sure touch is evident throughout this tender, gently comic work

—— Independent

One of our best contemporary storytellers. . . Trio embraces comedy, tragedy and redemption. It succeeds impressively because of its dramatic, often sensational, revelations

—— Spectator

I am a huge fan of William Boyd and the tender way he writes about the flaws and frailties of his characters. Trio is his best novel in years

—— Red, The Best Books to Read this October

Reading William Boyd's Trio is like shrugging on a worn leather jacket on the first brisk morning of autumn: cosy but cool . . . He has enormous fun with the worlds - and egos - of page and screen

—— The Times

Enormous fun . . . Boyd's characters are vibrant, his prose elegant, comedy excellent: the result is a book that's compassionate and compelling

—— Tatler

Boyd's writing is as fluent as ever but it's the ideas pulsing beneath the surface that distinguish Trio

—— Financial Times

Trio is an intricate set of variations on the idea of alternative selves, well beyond the title's trio, unobtrusively elegant in its formal beauty

—— New Statesman, Books of the Year

Sending an affably satiric shimmer over the ceaseless rewrites, grotesque miscastings and behind-the-scenes chicanery, William Boyd simultaneously explores deeper issues of duplicity and divided personality

—— Sunday Times, Best Fiction Books of the Year

A very funny and touching story of a friendship and a mystery unravelled

—— Woman & Home

Casey Cep’s painstakingly researched book is a gripping account of both the trial and Lee’s obsession with it.

—— Observer

Casey Cep has created a book that’s totally astounding and deeply moving.

—— Stylist

Astounding

—— Emerald Street

Superb, sparklingly intelligent

—— Daily Telegraph

In Furious Hours, her brilliant and gripping account, Casey Cep details and analyses [Harper] Lee’s increasingly desperate efforts to write that second book … Furious Hours is probably the nearest we will get to the book Harper Lee tried so hard to complete. It is a tacit tribute to Harper Lee but even more, an attempt, largely successful, to bring her abandoned project to final fruition … A book of compelling portraits … Cep’s narrative swarms with other characters, all credibly realised in their often cantankerous and eccentric ways … Painstakingly researched and beautifully written.

—— Times Literary Supplement

It’s as gripping as a thriller and as coolly dissected as a forensics report.

—— Robert Doulgas-Fairhurst , The Spectator

The inside scoop on Harper Lee’s long, post-Mockingbird silence. After working with Truman Capote on his true-crime book In Cold Blood, Lee attempted something similar, taking a murderous preacher, the Rev Willie Maxwell, as her subject. Despite years of research, Lee never produced a book – but Cep’s beautifully written offering goes a long way to making up for that. Utterly gripping, this is the ideal Christmas treat for anyone who loves Harper Lee.

—— Claire Lowdon , Sunday Times, Best Literary Books of the Year

An ingeniously structured, beautifully written double mystery

—— The Economist

Fascinating true story

—— The Times

The astonishing account of murders in Alabama and Harper Lee's attempt to unravel the story.

—— Hugo Vickers , The Telegraph

Fascinating ... Riveting.

—— Evening Standard

A glorious book of heart-warming philosophy and heart-rending sadness

—— Sainsbury’s Magazine

An excellent novel...thrilling reading...incredibly entertaining

—— Bookgeeks.co.uk

Surely one of the most versatile novelists writing today

—— Daily Express

Vivid, original and always engaging

—— The Times

Rose Tremain writes comedy that can break your heart

—— Literary Review

Steps inside the mind of Sir Robert Merivel

—— Sunday Business Post

For a second time this is one to cherish

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

A Pepysian romp of the first order

—— Independent Radar

Continues in the same superior vein as Restoration… The fusion of such an engrossing character, and the minutiae of another time, remains a marvel

—— Daily Telegraph

In this evocative and beautifully drawn novel of family and loyalty in the face of an uncertain future Tremain continues the story of a wonderfully unique character

—— Hannah Britt , Daily Express

Hugely enjoyable

—— Reader's Digest

Merivel’s hapless charm remains intact in this tour de force of literary technique

—— Sunday Telegraph (Seven)

A sequel that looks back to the earlier novel without ever quite recapturing its spirit is the perfect form in which to evoke that feeling of having to carry on, and of trying to make yourself have fun even with it eventually begins to hurt

—— Colin Burrow , Guardian

A marvelllously rollicking good read, and it is such a pleasure to meet Robert Merivel again. Rose Tremain brings the character to life in a way that makes you want to find out even more about the period. Enormously skilled and deft

—— Good Book Guide
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