Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Award-winning screenwriter best known for creating the medical drama Call the Midwife.
On the island
Eight records
classic doo-wop version by The Duprees, not the original Jo Stafford
from the musical Sunday in the Park with George
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:50Many people find the programme comforting, despite upsetting subject matter. What do you make of that?
I wonder sometimes if people find consolation in their own tears. People often say to me, oh, it was wonderful. I cried my eyes out. And I think often in life we are subject to very intense experiences that we either can't make sense of at the time or don't get the room to really feel, to allow ourselves to process these emotions.
Presenter asks
4:07You live in dread of disappointing people, don't you?
Having a television programme to look forward to is part of what makes life fun and enjoyable. You don't want to disappoint those people. And on a deeper level, I think it's very important to represent people who often feel as though their stories aren't told on television.
Presenter asks
8:22Did it feel like you were doing something different, telling stories that hadn't been told before?
I think stories about women at this particular point in history hadn't been told. And I found it fascinating because I'm from a working class background in Liverpool. … All of my grandmothers worked. This idea of women going out to work in the 60s and 70s wasn't surprising because working class women have always worked. And I think there's also perhaps a middle class preconception that all working class lives are miserable. But they're not. They're full of joy, gorgeous clothes, profundity, excitement, optimism.
The book
London Labour and the London Poor
Henry Mayhew
I think with a copy of that to hand, I could never feel lonely.
Presenter asks
14:07What was your mum like? You once described her as someone who in another life might have been at home on stage.
She would have been very at home on stage. She wanted to be an actress and in actual fact was offered a position as what was called an acting stage manager at Liverpool Playhouse when she was 15. … But her father wouldn't let her take up the job. … She was glamorous, she was angry, she was combative, she was totally admirable without ever being lovely in a way. She was just so strong. I think she needed to have lived her life on a greater canvas.
Presenter asks
17:10You had happy years as a child, but when you were just 18, you lost your dad. That must have been an incredibly shocking thing to go through.
He committed suicide, which at that time, in a predominantly Catholic culture that we lived in Liverpool, was something that could scarcely be discussed or spoken of. … I discovered [in his letters] a profound anxiety in my father. … And I think for the first time I realised that he was a man who felt things so deeply that maybe he was always going to come to that end.
Presenter asks
27:56What did David, your younger brother who had Down syndrome, teach you?
He taught me patience, he taught me kindness, he taught me that life isn't just about development. It's actually about something much more profound. It's about the ability to live within a moment. … He has remained a sort of touchstone in my life for that very reason. I like to think I'm a better person. I don't know who I would have been without him.
“To be a successful television writer, you need the sensitivity of an angel and the stamina of a mule.”
“I wonder sometimes if people find consolation in their own tears. People often say to me, oh, it was wonderful. I cried my eyes out. And I think often in life we are subject to very intense experiences that we either can't make sense of at the time or don't get the room to really feel, to allow ourselves to process these emotions.”
“I just love the suburbs and I think the suburbs have inspired me as a writer. All those tiny houses, you know, packed with secrets like wheat in a barn.”
“He taught me patience, he taught me kindness, he taught me that life isn't just about development. It's actually about something much more profound. It's about the ability to live within a moment.”
“The primary role of a woman in modern drama is usually to be found dead. And the primary role of a child is to go missing. Call the Midwife slightly turns that on its head because it's not about women dying, it's about women living, it's not about children going missing, it's about children arriving.”
“My regrets are like the stars. They're numberless and all the more beautiful because of their distance from me, I suppose.”