Get ringside seats for a bizarre piece of television history with Netflix reboot of Glow

Glow, a new Netflix comedy series, remembers an American wrestling show of the 1980s.

The new Netflix show Glow promises to be funny and smart, with subversive comedy commentary running throughout its first season. Courtesy Netflix

Glow is an acronym for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, the name of a cult television show first broadcast on American television more than 30 years ago, in which eccentric, funny, strong women fought and performed over-the-top comedy sketches in a wrestling ring.

Now they are being remembered and celebrated in a new Netflix comedy series, also called Glow, starring Alison Brie. She plays Ruth Wilder, an out-of-work actress so desperate to get an acting job that she agrees to become a wrestler on a low-budget cable-TV show.

If you saw Brie in TV drama Mad Men or sitcom Community, you might be confused because she is perhaps the last person you might imagine wearing a leotard and stepping into a wrestling ring – she has the physique of a model, not an athlete. But then, the women of Glow were no ordinary wrestlers. Even so the producers did not even want Brie to audition at first.

“I got the sense that they didn’t think I was gritty enough, based on the roles that I played before that were quite polished,” she says.

“That was a great signal for me that this was the role I wanted because I’d been looking to shatter that pristine image.

“I think ultimately what won them over was that my desperation and passion to be on the show was exactly like that of my character, Ruth.”

The show was created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, and the executive producers include Jenji Kohan and Tara Hermann, the creators of Orange Is the New Black, Netflix's most popular original drama.

"We were watching a documentary [GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (2012)], which featured the women looking back on their time working on Glow," says Flahive. "So we started watching the original show and it was so bonkers."

The show ran for four seasons and 104 episodes between 1986 and 1990. As Flahive and Mensch watched it, they saw an opportunity to make a behind-the-scenes comedy about it.

Though based on the real story, they decided to fictionalise it as they wanted to make a show that fit with the more gender-savvy modern audiences.

“We wanted the creative freedom to make our own characters and tell our own stories without being beholden to real live people,” says Flahive.

This also allowed producers to ramp up the comedy. They assembled an ensemble cast of characters featuring 14 female wrestlers and a male coach, Sam Sylvia, played by Mark Maron. He is a B-movie director who agrees to direct the show, in which he has no interest, as a stepping stone to his dream movie project.

“The producers told me that my character doesn’t know anything about wrestling, so I created the guy from the ground up and didn’t need to have any point of reference from the original show,” says Moran, who did not watch the 1980s show.

“So if the guy I play existed, it’s pure coincidence.”

In contrast, Brie devoured the original series after landing the role.

“It’s totally outrageous and bizarre and unlike anything I’ve seen,” she says, adding that she appreciated the fact that at its heart, it featured a host of inspirational women.

“When it first aired it really inspired some young girls and made them think that women could do anything that men could do – and maybe even better,” she says. “So I hope that our show will be similarly inspiring.”

This feminist slant is clear from the opening scene, in which Ruth is at an audition and reads the male role instead of the female role because it is better written. This type of funny, smart and subversive comedy commentary is sprinkled throughout the first season.

Ruth's wrestling rival is her former best friend, Debbie (Bettie Gilpin), who used to be a daytime-soap star. They fell out over a drunken indiscretion involving Debbie's husband, and so she jumps at the chance to come out of retirement and joins Glow as a way of getting revenge on Ruth.

Gilpin describes Glow, rather aptly, as "a Greek tragedy and a comedy".

Also in the cast is British singer Kate Nash, whose character, Rhonda, transforms into brainy wrestler Britannica when in the ring.

She discovered a hitherto unknown passion for wrestling during a “boot camp” the actors were put through with Mexican-American wrestling star Chavo Guerrero, Jr. In a strange quirk of fate, his uncle, Mando Guerrero, trained the women for the 1980s series.

“We did a month of training with Chavo and then we continued training throughout filming and going to wrestling matches,” says Nash.

“I think the fact we were all in it together really helped. You can do so many more things than you realise. I loved it.”

• Glow will be available on Netflix from Friday