Barbara Parker is Miss Blackpool 1964, but she doesn't want to become a beauty queen. She wants to make the world laugh, like her idol, Lucy Ball.
So she leaves her provincial Blackpool and her family for London, where she finds a job in the cosmetics department of a department store in Kensington, while trying to find a way to be noticed. A chance meeting with an agent will result in a change of her name and an audition for a new BBC comedy series. Sophie Strow's time has come. "The Funny Girl" is the story of a television show and its contributors: the screenwriters Tony and Bill, who are friends from the army and passionate comedy fans, the producer Dennis, who is a smart and calm man, educated at Oxford, dedicated to his team in general and to Sophie in particular, and Clive, Sophie's handsome co-star, who feels destined for better things. As the 1960s progress and the British television audience falls in love with Sophie's serial, the joys of teamwork begin to fade: nothing good lasts forever and the complications of real life always find a way to creep in...