creator Lisa McGee has explained Geri Halliwell’s famous flag dress was missing from the girl-band inspired routine due to its political connotations with Unionism in Northern Ireland.
The gang are currently in the show’s final season, and fans got to catch up with them again on Tuesday.
In episode one, we were treated to, followed by an epic routine in the latest instalment.
But there was one glaring feature missing, which many of those watching at home quickly noted.
Geri’s Union Jack slip dress was nowhere to be seen on Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) instead sporting a gold bedazzled outfit with a peace sign.
Lisa reminded fans it would have been inappropriate to have Erin sporting the famous dress, due to the characters’ Catholic beliefs.
‘Erin is Ginger, but we haven’t done the Union Jack dress because that would have been not okay to Catholics in Derry.
‘Our amazing costume designer made her a glittery dress with a peace sign on,’ he said to .
The girls – and the wee English fella James – attend Lady Immaculate College, a fictional girls’ Catholic secondary school based on the real-life Thornhill College, where Lisa herself studied.
Across the three seasons, plots have featured references to actual events of the Troubles and the Northern Ireland peace process, including the 1994 IRA ceasefire announcement and the 1995 visit to Northern Ireland of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.
Turns out the Spice Girls’ routine was also based on a ‘horrific’ dance Lisa and friends carried out during her time at school.
‘We were so bad – I mean spectacularly bad but we thought we were amazing,’ she explained at a Q&A at the show’s Derry premiere, according to .
Erin star Saoirse-Monica has previously spoken out on the similarities between the fab 90s girl band and our favourite Derry gang.
‘I actually said to Lisa before, it’s like she wrote Derry Girls around the Spice Girls because each of us is so different and it’s perfect casting,’ she explained.
‘It’s like your childhood dream to be Geri Halliwell on TV, and wear the ginger wig, which I really feel suited me, and do the dance routine with your friends and go to a recording studio and sing the lyrics.
‘It’s lovely, a dream come true.’
Derry Girls airs Tuesdays at 9.15pm on Channel 4.
