By Neil Durham

WHEN? Tuesday 10 February 2026

HOW TO WATCH? Episodes available on Netflix from Thursday 12 February 2026

McGee created Derry Girls and her follow-up – How To Get To Heaven From Belfast – is about 3 women in their late 30s who investigate the mysterious death of the former schoolfriend they haven’t seen for 20 years.

• Read on for reasons including how this is recognisably by the creator of Derry Girls but throws a little Scooby Doo-style mystery into the mix as well as some reflection on youth

McGee explains at this BFI Southbank preview of episode 1: ‘It’s incredible to be working with exactly the same team behind the camera as on Derry Girls. I’ve always wanted to have a crack at a mystery.

‘I want to write something I would watch. I really believe me and my friends would like to think we’d be brilliant at solving a mystery although we’d probably make it worse and worse,’ says the author who was born in Derry, studied drama in Belfast, before moving to London and then back to Belfast.

In episode 1 we meet Saoirse played by Roisin Gallagher, Sinead Keenan’s Robyn and Caoilfhionn Dunne as Dara. They’re told the schoolfriend they grew up with has died, they return home for her wake but become suspicious when her body is not in the open casket.

Saoirse is a TV writer who’s just quit her most successful gig, Robyn is looking for a break from her young children and Dara’s happy to be away from the elderly mother she looks after.

In that 1st episode we discover all the girls have a mysterious identical tattoo and we join them on the dancefloor on a drunken pre-wake night out to bangers from their youth including B*Witched, Black Eyed Peas and Junior Senior.

McGee talks about her love of comedy Father Ted and 1 of its stars, Ardal O’Hanlon, makes an appearance in that 1st episode.

Also there is Darragh Hand (Dear England, National Theatre) as a potential love interest for Roisin and an appearance as a voice on the phone by Tom Basden (The Ballad Of Wallis Island).

Dunne reminisced about the chemistry read between the 3 leads: ‘I knew we had something just from the reaction in the room. People started laughing from us doing very little.’

McGee adds: ‘Ensemble stuff lives or dies by the casting and you need to believe that these women are friends. They looked like a group who were about to start arguing.’

Shot in Nothern Ireland, Roisin wanted to keep the joyous dancefloor sequence in the opening episode as simple as possible when she realised they would be shooting it over and over through the day.

To get the mystery tone right, McGee had to lose some jokes to let the creepy sense breathe which was hard because Derry Girls was so packed with gags.

McGee adds: ‘I still feel like a 15 year old pretending to be a grown up most of the time.’

How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is recognisably by the creator of Derry Girls but throws a little Scooby Doo-style mystery into the mix as well as some reflection on youth.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy BFI Southbank Tickets for events like these
• Have you seen a Lisa McGee show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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