Thank you for your patience, and thank you to those who have emailed me with photos, articles and other content. I assure you that your contributions are very much appreciated and will be added to the site in due course.

I thought it would only be right to do a Boy Meets Girl update this evening, following tonight's airing of the first episode. Rachael and her co-star Martin Freeman have been splashed all over the media this week, in magazine articles, reviews, and television interviews. I'm not used to it! She hasn't had this much media attention since Tipping the Velvet, and it's hard to keep up, though brilliant for Rachael, of course. I'm really happy that she's finally starring in something that is getting a lot of attention.

I've just done an update of all of the new Boy Meets Girl articles that have come my way thanks to Google Alerts and visitors to the website. We have the This Morning interview from yesterday to add (will probably post that tomorrow) but haven't yet managed to get hold of the BBC Breakfast interview from today, which is a shame. We'll keep trying. Thanks go to Emily for scanning in a couple of new articles for us! Transcriptions are below, and the original scans can be found in the Magazines and Newspapers: 2009 gallery.

Interviews and Features

• California Chronicle: I'm the Man: Rachael Stirling Tells How She Had Screen Sex Change to Play a Bloke for Fourth Time
• Broadcast: On location: Boy Meets Girl
• The Independent: Boy Meets Girl: Strangers in strange skins
• SeenIt.co.uk: Freeman stars in body-swap drama
• Manchester Evening News: Male order for Rachael
• Northern Echo: Stirling work
• Total TV Guide: Body swap!
• TV Quick: Swap shop

I've uploaded a selection of new photos to the Boy Meets Girl photo shoots gallery:

View the full gallery

There have also been plenty of reviews in the press this week:

Reviews of Boy Meets Girl

• Northern Echo
• What's On TV
• Times
• Stage
• Mirror
• Financial Times

Boy Meets Girl will be released on DVD in the UK on 25th May 2009, the week after the final part airs on ITV1. The cheapest we've found so far is HMV.com for £7.99. We'll be pre-ordering it!

As for what we thought of the first episode, which aired this evening? Absolutely brilliant! I am thrilled to see Rachael in something like this. Four hours (yes, four — not two as I previously reported) of Rachael in a starring role, and she appears to be in almost every scene. It's wonderful, and she's really getting the chance to shine. The writing is great, the production fantastic, and Rachael is just perfect for this role. I was a bit sceptical at first, but I'm loving it, and can't wait to see how the story progresses over the next three weeks. Wonderful.

Just a quick reminder to all that Boy Meets Girl starts on ITV1 in just a few minutes. I'll be tuning in. I'm really looking forward to it.

Watch this space later tonight for an update with photos, articles, and a quick review from me!

Freeman plays dreamer Danny Reed, whose life is turned upside down when he is struck by lightning and wakes to find himself trapped in a woman's body. Instead of being a scruffy DIY store worker with no prospects, he has now swapped lives with glamorous female fashion journalist Veronica Burton.

Veronica is tall, gorgeous, striking and smart. On paper Veronica has a pretty fantastic life: a fabulous apartment, an attractive and successful boyfriend, Jay, who dotes on her, and a great job writing for the local paper's fashion page. Her life is a whirlwind of drinks, parties, shopping, interviews and generally living it up.

Danny suddenly must learn how to walk in stilettos and put on a bra, deal with the amorous advances of Veronica's boyfriend Jay and pass himself off as a fashion expert while also finding out what has happened to his old self.

His double life becomes further complicated when he discovers that Veronica has been having an affair with Ali, the boyfriend of close friend Siobhan. But Danny comes to see the advantages of his new life when he revisits his old DIY shop as the stylish, tall and attractive Veronica and speaks to his fellow worker Pete and the girl of his dreams Fiona about Danny's "disappearance". And, for the first time ever, Fiona seems interested in him.

The question is, will Danny find his way back to his old life and, if he does, will he still want it?

Download the press pack here: http://www.itv.com/PressCentre/Presspacks/BoyMeetsGirl/default.html

The switch occurs when Danny (Martin Freeman) is stealing copper wire to repay a debut. He and stranded motorist Veronica (Rachael Stirling) are struck by lightning — and change bodies.

This results in her going around behaving like a bloke, demanding fizzy pop and being appalled at the state of men's public lavatories. At a dinner party with friends, she lounges about wearing a hoodie and talks about conspiracy theories just like Danny would.

So far Veronica has been seen doing most of the discovering what it's like to be a man in a woman's body. And Rachael Stirling is very good at being blokish, whether it's her mannerisms or her speech.

Her boyfriend is understandably mystified by her new mannish behaviour.

She's not much enamoured of him either.

Worse still, she reckons his record collection is rubbish.

This madcap four-part comedy drama sees Martin Freeman employ his handy "I'm very bewildered" acting as a dopey DIY store worker who gets struck by lightning and finds himself trapped in the body of sassy female fashion journalist Veronica (Rachael Stirling). While trying to find out what the devil has happened to his old self, Danny has to learn how to manage stilettos, bras and a boyfriend… good fun.

Scriptwriter David Allison has responded with Boys Meets Girl for ITV, and the channel has even bussed in Marshall Lancaster from Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes, as if that will make it all the more believable.

Here's the plot: Danny Reed (The Office's Martin Freeman) and Veronica Burton (Rachael Stirling, last seen in the BBC's lesbian drama Tipping The Velvet) get zapped by lightning and swap personalities. Then they try to go about their business, only he's a man in a woman's body and she's… well, you get the drift.

It's not quite a temporal shift, then, but it offers the same potential for comedy. Danny meets his old mates incognito, sees his life through their eyes and finds out what they really think of him.

Even better is when he road tests Veronica's vibrator, though he stops short at doing the same with her boyfriend.

He has trouble with the bras and the high heels, but he quite likes jumping up and down in front of the mirror. Laughing yet?

There is some cute acting from Stirling and, as well as Freeman and Lancaster, she's joined by an excellent supporting cast which includes Paterson Joseph (Survivors) and Angela Griffin (Waterloo Road).

Oh, and like Life On Mars, it's set in Manchester.

Martin Freeman and Rachael Stirling star in this gender-swapping switcheroo comedy where, after a lightning strike, two strangers wake up to find that they've traded places.

Danny, a Mancunian slob who works in a DIY store, is now a beauty journalist called Veronica — and vice versa.

Although Martin Freeman is the better known of the two, it's Stirling — best known for her role in Tipping the Velvet as well as for being Diana Rigg's daughter — who gets the lion's share of screen time in this first episode.

With the body of Veronica but the brain of Danny, her reactions as she — or he — discovers she now has a handsome boyfriend (Peep Show's Paterson Joseph) and a luxury apartment are a wonderful mixture of horror and delight.

Mind you, not even a lightning strike can explain why the front page story on the local Manchester newspaper Veronica works for is about a traffic jam in Dublin.

As Danny and Veronica try to find their missing selves, this four-parter has a lot in common with ITV's recent hit Lost In Austen, because once Danny has stopped playing with his own breasts, he sees all the tosh women supposedly have to put up with and he's having none of it.

In that respect, you can tell it was written by a man.

But while the clichés are impossible to avoid — and we'd feel cheated if they weren't there — they're handled deftly enough to sweep you along.