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Six of Black Mirror’s Best: Toby Haynes

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Black Mirror director Toby Haynes reveals his top picks from Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology series, including a pair of his own entries, and explains how they were brought to the screen.

When Toby Haynes first signed on to direct an episode of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology series Black Mirror, he admits it was an “incredibly daunting” prospect to follow in the footsteps of other filmmakers including Joe Wright, Otto Bathurst and Jodie Foster.

But after taking the reins for one of the show’s standout episodes, season four opener USS Callister, he has since returned to the series three more times for S6’s horror-themed Demon 79 and S7 entries Bête Noire and USS Callister: Into Infinity, Black Mirror’s sole sequel episode to date.

Here, Haynes reveals his six favourite episodes (plus a few honourable mentions) and takes DQ inside some of the creative decision-making on Demon 79 and Bête Noire.

The Entire History of You (S1.E3)
In a future world where people can record everything they see and hear, Liam (Toby Kebbell) becomes suspicious of his wife (Jodie Whittaker)’s relationship with her friend Jonas (Tom Cullen), leading him to scrutinise his memories.

It was the first episode I watched. I loved the way it was conceived, I loved the choices they’d made. The feeling that it was only a few minutes into the future was really interesting, but it was such a brilliant story, and feels very Charlie even though it was written by Jesse [Armstrong]. It has that Charlie way of putting people at odds with each other and creating a situation that is deeply uncomfortable.

That was the first one I saw and it was such a thrill to see a show that was this grown-up and intelligent but in the science-fiction arena. My first love of TV was through Doctor Who and Star Wars, so sci-fi was in my blood, and here I was working with Charlie Brooker, who I was aware of very early on, particularly with [zombie satire] Dead Set, which was just the most remarkable series. Suddenly I was working with him on this show. It was extremely daunting. Watching that was really exciting.

San Junipero (S3.E4)
When introverted Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis) and outgoing Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) visit the titular beach town, their lives are changed forever.

I was aware of Owen [Harris, director]’s work through Misfits, which was another show I really loved. He has such an aesthetic and a way of looking at things, and there’s such a polish to his work as well. The intimidation, stress and anxiety levels were going through the roof for me, looking at this incredible piece of work that is so soulful and so beautiful but incredibly considered.

Every shot had a reason to be, and it felt like a level of execution I hadn’t managed to achieve at that point in my career. I’m much more of an instinctive director, working in the moment with my actors and where I want to put the camera, and less contrived, but what Owen manages to do is make it feel very natural, with perfect choices that were clearly made a long time before he stepped on set. It was a thrill to watch – and had great music choices.

White Bear (S2.E2)
Victoria (Lenora Crichlow) wakes up and cannot remember who she is or where she is. Everyone she encounters refuses to communicate with her, and they all seem to know something she doesn’t – but what?

I remember speaking to the production designer, Joel Collins, who told me White Bear was what you call a ‘bottle episode’ in the sense that they had, to some extent, run out of money that season. Joel said to Charlie, ‘Look, we’ve got this location we can pull out, we could do this on the budget we’ve got, this is what we could achieve.’ And Charlie went away and apparently turned the script around in a week – and that was White Bear.

One of the great things about Charlie and the creative process is that when you’re under pressure, you come up with great solutions and you go to places you didn’t expect. So, under pressure, Charlie had come up with this incredible, intense episode with a twist that is absolutely mind-blowing.

This was starting to give me more confidence [to make USS Callister] because looking at White Bear, you’re like, ‘Well it doesn’t have to be this highly orchestrated filmmaking,’ which you get in San Junipero. It was much more of an energy-based episode and kind of scrappier. That did feel a bit more my wheelhouse. But just as a viewer, it’s so riveting. I’d worked with Lenora on Being Human, so it was really cool to see her in action. It was such a gut punch, that reveal at the end.

The National Anthem (S1.E1)
Prime minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) faces a shocking dilemma when Princess Susannah (Lydia Wilson), a much-loved member of the royal family, is kidnapped.

The first one – what an incredible film that was. I hadn’t worked with Rory Kinnear at that point. I worked with him later on Brexit, the film I did after my first Black Mirror. But I was such a huge fan of his, and to see him being faced with such an impossible, hilariously disgusting and yet strangely plausible situation was just a delight.

What was really interesting about it was there’s no technology really in The National Anthem. Charlie gets a bit of stick these days if he does an episode without technology, Demon 79 being one of them, yet the show began with an episode [like that]. It’s always good to remember that [Black Mirror episodes] are all horrors. The National Anthem is such a profound horror story for a politician to go through, and it’s dark humour throughout. The sheer joy at the mischievousness of it was brilliant.

Demon 79 (S6.E5)
Northern England, 1979. A meek sales assistant (Anjana Vasan) is told she must commit terrible acts to prevent the apocalypse when she is visited by the mysterious Gaap (Paapa Essiedu).

It’s such an incredible script written by Charlie and Bisha [K Ali] – I could really feel the influence of Bisha. She’s an incredible writer and a wonderful person to work with. When we got into the shoot of Demon, the character of Gaap wasn’t meant to be the Gaap you see on screen. He was supposed to be a punk rocker, not unlike Viv from The Young Ones. But when I started to think about it, this manifestation of Gaap was not fitting the direction we were going in.

For a start, it was very hard to find someone who could inhabit a kind of punk rocker attitude. But I remember Paapa’s tape coming in and he didn’t play the punk rocker. He played the naive kid in his father’s business trying to do a job that he’s not very well suited to. The punk aesthetic just didn’t suit Paapa, it’s not his energy. Bisha was looking at bands from the era and she went, ‘Boney M!’ We looked at Boney M and we all just went, ‘That’s Gaap.’

The reason I’m putting it on the list is because I have such an affinity for that film, for the way we made it. When I sat down in the edit and saw it, I thought, ‘This is the closest thing to perfection that I’ve managed to achieve.’ It’s not the film I read when I first read the script, but in terms of how we shifted and moulded it through the process of what we were given and the inspiration we had, Paapa and what he brought to it, Anjana and what she brought to it, and the design aspect… it was just such a great experience.

Demon has a special place in my heart. I can’t really watch my work very often without cringing. But Demon, it’s not my work. It’s the sum of so many great and talented people that I could just take great pleasure in watching it and seeing it come to fruition.

Bête Noire (S7.E2)
Confectionary whizz kid Maria (Siena Kelly) is unnerved when her former schoolmate Verity (Rose McEwen) joins the company she works at – because there’s something altogether odd about Verity, something only Maria seems to notice.

I call it a sleeper hit. It was a sleeper film to make as well, because it felt like a very slight story to me on the page. I was like, ‘I’m not sure what Charlie’s going for here.’ I knew he was trying to go for gaslighting, but what was good about it was that for all of its lightness, it was all about performance and it was all about actors. There weren’t a lot of pyrotechnic sequences for me to get my teeth into in terms of set pieces. There are no car chases, no space battle. It was very much actors in rooms acting.

[Casting director] Jina Jay smashed it out of the park. Siena, what an incredible, soulful actor she is. She brings absolute heart and humanity to that role. I just loved working with her. She’s such an instinctive actor, I really felt like she has to feel the situation to know how she’s gonna pitch it. She doesn’t come in fully loaded. She really finds it in the moment, and it was just great. The way she played Maria, I felt like I knew that person. I understood her, and she was really playing with the idea of what Maria remembers about Rosy’s character, Verity. We were playing with the idea of knowing you did something wrong to this person but it feels so alien to who you are now that you don’t want to acknowledge it and you are in denial about it. She really captured that brilliantly and you can see how she plays it.

Rosy was an absolute revelation. In some ways, she’s also instinctive but she does come fully loaded. She is a very cerebral actress. I remember seeing her in the castings and thinking she was going to be really special. In a funny way, I had to fight for the casting on that. I remember having to do a bit of a pitch for Siena and Rosy, and we got them in for a chemistry test. Then after Charlie and Jessica [Rhoades, executive producer] saw that tape, Jessica said to me, ‘It’s such a pleasure when a director fights for his vision, because seeing that has made me see the episode in a new light.’ That was a really lovely thing for her to say.

Toby Haynes on set for Bête Noire with star Siena Kelly

We did the shoot in about 16 days. I had a plan in my head about how to approach the visual of it, because I really wanted to make it feel real. I thought the episode relied on the fact that it had to feel like a real situation, something you absolutely recognise, and so I wanted to shoot it very observationally at first with the cameras, and slowly bring the cameras in closer and closer to Maria as she’s getting slowly cornered by Verity’s trap.

Then you get to that last scene, and that shot where one tear comes out of Rosy’s eye – she did that in the first take. It was just incredible. Siena met that moment with emotion, totally breaking down. You’re watching someone have an absolute mental breakdown in front of you, it’s incredible. I just fizz with excitement when I’m filming this stuff.

Again, it’s credit to Charlie’s writing that here is a scene where you’ve been following the victim all the way through this and then he flips everything. Verity’s not the bully, she’s the victim. Maria’s the bully, she fucking did it. And then he flips it again. We then go into a little fight, and I wanted a fight that just feels real. We’ve gone from the memory of being bullied in the playground to having a playground scrap. They’re pulling each other’s hair and then they do a lovely slappy fight because neither of them know how to fight. It’s not a long fight but it is a really impactful fight. I’m really proud of that and how we pulled that off. You’ve gone from the high melodrama of these revelations, you’ve shifted allegiances from who’s the victim and who’s a bully, and then you’re into this action fight that is just so visceral and painful and each impact hurts.

Ultimately, I don’t think I saw it on the page when I first read it, but I’m now so aware of the mischievousness of what Charlie did trying to gaslight the nation. You can’t trust what you’ve seen – there are two versions of that film. There is no one version of reality in that film. That’s all I’m gonna say, and that is the genius of Charlie Brooker.

Honourable mentions

Playtest (S3.E2) was great. Dan Trachtenberg directed Playtest and that was another one that had this incredibly considered way of filmmaking. It just seemed perfectly shot and perfectly realised. It seemed brilliantly cinematic.

I remember watching Hated in the Nation (S3.E6). That’s really good, with great performances.

Metalhead (S4.E5) – thank goodness I saw Metalhead after I’d made USS Callister. It’s just a brilliantly envisaged film on so many levels. Direction, performance, and not least the design of that robot dog. I saw a model of it that Joel [Collins] had made, and it was just an incredibly well-realised piece of tech. It really felt real. It was a real thrill to watch that one.

Striking Vipers (S5.E1) is such a great episode. I remember catching up with that when I started doing Demon 79. Again, Owen Harris is absolutely knocking it out the park. It felt like a really sophisticated piece of drama.

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Reaching Pubertat

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With her latest series, director, writer and actor Leticia Dolera blends complex discussions about families, sexual assault and the age of criminality, set against the backdrop of a unique Catalonian tradition. She sits down with DQ to go through Pubertat (Puberty).

According to her Instagram bio, Leticia Dolera is a director, screenwriter and actor, in that order. But it was only when she came to setting up her account – she also describes herself as a feminist and professional zombie slayer – that the multi-hyphenate had to consider whether she had a preference for any of the three roles she routinely takes on together.

“It’s interesting because the day I put it on Instagram, I had to decide the order,” she laughs, before admitting directing and acting probably, maybe, take equal top billing. “But it’s very different when I act in my own things or when I act in somebody else’s, because when I act in somebody else’s, it’s like I give permission to myself to not overthink things and just do what I’m supposed to do. It’s very relaxing.”

When Dolera directs and acts, it means she has to be in the make-up chair even earlier than usual. That means “you don’t sleep a lot,” she says. “It’s funny because since my brain goes very fast and I think a lot of things, acting and directing at the same time is the way to be.”

A prolific actor with on-screen roles stretching back almost 25 years, Dolera has written, directed and starred in projects such as film Requirements to be a Normal Person, an episode of Covid lockdown TV series En Casa (At Home) and her two-season comedy drama Vida perfecta (Perfect Life).

It’s a dynamic she has now revisited for her latest project, Pubertat (Puberty). The six-part series blends crime and family drama to explore what happens when three young boys from a small community are accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, who is also their best friend.

Leticia Dolera (left) on set for her series Pubertat (puberty), which she wrote, directed and appears in

But as preparations begin for the traditional castells festival – featuring stacks of human towers – tensions become unbearable, with secrets and lies threatening to bring down the whole town.

“It poses several questions,” Dolera tells DQ. “Can a child be a sexual aggressor? And if so, whose responsibly is that – the kid, the parents, the school? Who’s going to take responsibility for something like that and how are we going to know if we can consider what happened as sexual aggression or not?

“There is an age when you start to explore [sex]. But where’s that line when the exploration process finishes and the aggression starts? And how are kids going to know where that line is if they see that we adults don’t know? We don’t know what to do with consent as adults, and we pretend that children have that clear.”

In the series, Dolera plays Júlia, the single mother of one of the boys at the centre of the alleged sexual assault. Júlia previously believed that in cases like this, you should always trust the victim. But when she discovers the accusations have been made against her son, her principles are challenged.

Then over the course of the series, “she starts to see the greys of the situation, that everything is not black and white,” Dolera says. “There’s a more difficult place, which is the grey.

“What’s interesting about the show is you see how the parents and the adults around these kids take care of the situation. We think we’re going to know what to do and we’re going to be very clear in our morals and ethics, but then once it happens to us, maybe we aren’t. It’s where the rational and the emotional come into conflict, and that’s something that always interests me, the contradictions of just being humans.”

The show poses challenging questions about sexual assault among young people

Puberty has been a long time in the making, owing to the significant amount of research Dolera undertook to make the series as authentic as possible, particularly relating to the laws around sexual assault and the age of criminality, which is 14 in Spain (compared with 10 in England and Wales).

In fact, it was while she was editing Perfect Life S1 that Dolera started listening to stories of children and young teenagers in conflict that emerged alongside the ever-increasing proliferation of porn, a lack of sex education and the “explosion” of the #MeToo movement.

“It’s very complex,” she says. “We know that cell phones and the internet has a lot to do with that and it was something that really interested me and worried me. I do shows or movies about things I have questions about and that I see I cannot resolve by myself. Art is a good way to explore those questions and put them on the table so you can share them with the rest of the community because social questions are not to be answered in an individual way.”

The star also spent a year talking with experts who have worked with victims and the aggressors of sexual assaults, both adults and children.

“The good thing about TV opposed to movies is that TV gives you the opportunity to almost do an X-ray of society, and you can go into more detail,” she continues. “I discovered this legal issue that in Spain minors under 14 cannot be charged of anything but from 14 to 18 they can be charged as minors. So in the show, there are three kids involved and two of them are 13 and one of them is 14. It’s putting on the table why if they’re involved in the same case, the consequences are going to be very different from them. That’s one thing I discovered and added into the show.”

When she speaks to DQ, Dolera is in the middle of dubbing the Catalan-language series into Spanish ahead of its broadcast on Catalonia regional broadcaster 3Cat and streamer HBO Max Spain later this year.

Puberty will land on 3Cat and Max Spain later in 2025

In fact, the setting and language of the series is particularly specific, as Dolera wanted to centre a story around the castell festivals traditionally found in Catalonia, in north-eastern Spain. The idea of the traditional versus the modern then became a key theme, with the story exploring how society has progressed yet maintains traditions from the past.

“One day, I thought about the human towers, the castells, and I had this image I just couldn’t let it go of because suddenly I was thinking of all the ways the story had a meaning in that context,” she says. “It’s a place where you mix people from all socioeconomic classes, both sexes, and actually once they’re dressed, there are no gender issues because the clothes are the same for everyone. It’s like the castell equalises everyone.

“It’s also about people from several generations working together, and there’s no taboo in terms of touching each other – not in a sexual way – so it’s interesting because of what happens. I like that in the castells, we have to touch each other and trust each other. Situations that have something to do with aggressions or abuse are always in context of a lot of trust, and that trust sometimes is either misunderstood or broken.”

Unable to feature real human towers in the series, Dolera found a solution in blending documentary footage of real castells with VFX composites, where the different levels of the castell were filmed in a studio and then pieced together in post-production. Some of the actors featured in the drama are also real castellers. “We did that so you could see them in the series and it would give us a sense of reality,” says Dolera.

Now, as she puts the finishing touches to the series – produced by Corte y Confección de Péliculas, Distinto Films, Uri Films and AT-Prod, with Beta Film handling distribution – Dolera hopes Puberty will provoke discussions and ask people to imagine what they would do in the same situation.

“I hope they face their own contradictions and fears,” she adds. “I hope this opens a personal and collective conversation, not just about what to do with sexual education and our children but also what to do with our own grey zones.”

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Raul or nothing

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Music drama Raul Seixas: Eu Sou (Let Me Sing) charts the life of the musician and performer known as the ‘Brazilian Elvis.’ Co-creators Paulo Morelli and Pedro Morelli join star Ravel Andrade to talk about the legacy of Seixas and how they brought his life story to the screen.

He’s described as the father of Brazilian rock music, and even had a Google Doodle created to celebrate his life and work. Now an eight-part biopic about superstar Raul Seixas follows his rise to fame against the backdrop of his personal struggles and the political dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s.

Raul Seixas: Eu Sou (Let Me Sing) stars Ravel Andrade as the titular singer and composer, in a series that explores his cultural, political and spiritual influences as well as his personal and professional achievements and struggles.

Created by father-and-son team Paulo Morelli and Pedro Morelli, who also direct, it is produced by O2 Filmes for Brazilian streamer Globoplay. Following the show’s world premiere at French television festival Series Mania earlier this year, Let Me Sing is due to debut in Brazil on June 26.

Here, the Morellis discuss bringing Seixas’s story to the screen, while Andrade reflects on getting into character to play the real-life superstar.

Paulo Morelli, who created and directed the show with his son Pedro, on the Let Me Sing set

Why did you want to tell the story of Raul Seixas?
Paulo Morelli: Raul Seixas has been part of my life since youth, and he shaped my perceptions. Brazilian music is so strong and diverse, and he brings something different from the other musicians – he brings rock ‘n’ roll. He’s called the father of rock ‘n’ roll in Brazil. He affected my view of music and my formation, and he affected my son as well, 30 years later. So when we were looking to do something about music, we thought about Raul, because he’s diverse, transgressive, chaotic and mystic. He is not easy to put in a box. He’s very interesting and represents the diversity of Brazil.

Is Raul still popular today or is it going be exciting for people to rediscover him and his music?
Pedro Morelli: This series is going to help the new generation to get to know him better, because he’s really huge. He’s kind of a Brazilian Elvis, but it’s been decades [since his death in 1989], so now a new generation will know who Raul is.

In Brazil, when you’re playing the guitar – and everybody in Brazil plays the guitar – it’s almost a cliché to say, ‘Toca Raul,’ which means ‘play Raul.’ Every time you’ve got a guitar, somebody’s gonna say toca Raul, so it’s like he’s everywhere.

His spirit and his music is part of Brazilian culture in a very deep way, and the most interesting thing about him is that he really lived what he was preaching. He was always talking about freedom and going against societal norms and people being square. He talked about and did that, and experimented with his own life, right until the end.

He was also outspoken against the political climate of the time.
Pedro Morelli: It was definitely a dictatorship [in Brazil]. Many artists were being killed or imprisoned and he was really brave.

Paulo Morelli: Like all artists [at that time], he had to find a way through his lyrics to say things in a way the dictatorship could not understand.

The biographical series stars Ravel Andrade as legendary Brazilian musician Raul Seixas

Ravel, what were your first thoughts about playing Raul Sexias?
Ravel Andrade: Raul is part of Brazilian culture. For people of many generations, he is an artist who really does not age. Today’s generation keep listening to Raul; their parents pass it to their children. But not as many young people listen to Raul, so we wanted to preserve his memory, and that’s why we did the series.

I have always had a strong relationship with music and lyrics. When I got the part, it was very important to my family, my parents, because Raul is an icon. It’s interesting to be able to act as this artist who is a walking metamorphosis, as he qualifies himself in his lyrics. He’s an artist who will never die, and it’s a privilege for me to be able to represent a person who will never die.

How did you prepare to play him on screen?
Andrade: It was a very hard job. Because he had a strong personality, he has a lot of tribute acts in Brazil, like Elvis. He had his own universe in Brazil, and he’s very mimicked – in our series, we have a story where people think he isn’t the real Raul.

I had to prepare my body, the way I walked; I had to learn all the music, playing guitar, singing his lyrics. His lyrics were huge because he was a philosopher. I had to learn about these ideas that were in his music, so I had to really dwell on the lyrics and learn them by heart.

It was huge work to attain his style. His way of thinking was very fertile and also very spiritual. He had his own way of seeing life, so there was some pressure, because Raul is an entity of his own. I wanted to represent Raul; for people to see Raul when they see the series. It was very demanding and I had to do lots of research.

The Morellis wanted to reflect Seixas’s creativity in their approach to the series

The show moves back and forward through Raul’s life. What kind of story did you want to tell about him?
Paulo Morelli: Some people say you should choose just one period of time when making a biography, but we decided to tell the story from when he is 10 or 12 years old to his death. It’s his whole life depicted in eight episodes, because it’s so full of interesting moments, including his final moment, his burial.

But how do you avoid getting lost when doing this? We selected a thread to follow the story, and it’s about character. Raul creates a character, Raulzito, to become what he would like to be. But this very radical creature he’s created is a transgressor and goes to the end of possibilities. This creature destroys him at the same time that it immortalises him. So it’s the story of this creature getting bolder and bolder until it collapses the creator. It’s a story about a creature and its creator.

What did you want to cover beyond what the public may already know?
Paulo Morelli: We try to show various aspects of his life, not only the public one. We look at his family – five wives and three daughters with three of them. He has a very intense way of living; it’s not just the music and the shows. We try to depict something that people don’t know.

Paulo and Pedro, what was your partnership like as co-creators and directors?
Pedro Morelli: We are kind of used to it. We did a movie together, like 10 years ago – we co-directed a film. Now we’re prepping a new series we’ll shoot this year, so we never stop. It’s kind of never-ending.

We really got along and it’s a cool, collaborative creative process because we respect each other’s ideas. Making movies or series is all about collaboration. It’s a very collective art form. It’s all about taking the best of each other’s ideas and building it up. It doesn’t work well with everybody; you need to find a good partner. But every idea, even a bad idea, has something good in it or has some inspiration for something better. It’s all about trying to look at the other person’s idea from the right perspective.

The show debuted at Series Mania in France earlier this year

What was your approach to filming and depicting the different time periods?
Paulo Morelli: We wanted to respect the creativity Raul brought to Brazilian culture, so we decided not to make a ‘square’ product. It needed to be bold – we had to be brave to try different things and not just follow the classical way of telling stories. Because Raul was like this; he was very creative and inventive, very different. He had a lot of kinds of music, not just rock ‘n’ roll, mixed with several influences. So we tried to bring his creativity to the project.

How did you work with the cast, and particularly with Ravel as Raul?
Pedro Morelli: There were lots of rehearsals all together, and then we each directed certain episodes. It was great working with Ravel in the rehearsals and discovering the character. Raul is such a big icon that people might look at it in a superficial way – we needed to find the human being. Despite all the crazy things he was doing, we were always in search of who he was and what was inside his heart and mind. That has everything to do with the way we decided to shoot.

There are also surrealist elements to the series.
Pedro Morelli: We really tried to get inside his mind and his creative process, going as far as we could.

Andrade: It’s a very collaborative because we had to represent this huge character. But I had my own connection with Raul. When you work a lot, you feel lonely as an actor. I was away from my city, from my home. I felt alone, but when I was rehearsing and during scenes, it was very strong, very intense.

This relationship between father and son [Paulo and Pedro], they work together but they are very different directors. With Paulo, I found I could contribute. We had a form of relationship. With Pedro, it was a different reality, a different direction, so it was a group effort but I had different personal relationships with both of them.

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At the sharp end

The creative team behind Brazilian drama Living on a Razor’s Edge discuss the inspiration behind this biopic of social justice campaigner Herbert ‘Betinho’ de Souza, comparisons to Pelé and the real-world impact the series is having.

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Six of the Best: Helen Perry

SIX OF THE BEST,

The UKTV drama commissioning head’s picks include a “groundbreaking” US crime series, a character-led sports show and a fact-based drama that made real-world headlines.

The Shield
I’d read that the pilot episode of The Shield was groundbreaking, so I watched it purely for research. Little did I know I’d be sucked into the world of Vic Mackey and the Strike team for seven seasons. I binged 88 episodes and felt bereft when it was over. Apparently, showrunner Shawn Ryan instructed his co-writers to tell each story with the fewest beats possible and to end every scene with an ad-break-worthy hook. These techniques give the show a relentless pace and energy that has a visceral impact. You don’t passively watch The Shield, you breathlessly live it.

Mr Inbetween
Another anti-hero show. I love dramas that explore the complexity and messiness of morality and human behaviour. This Australian gem by Scott Ryan is a rare treat. I spend so much time thinking about story structure, genre and tonal cohesion that a defiantly ambiguous series that throws away every rule in the book feels truly revolutionary. You never know where Mr Inbetween (also pictured above) will go next, and I love its unpredictability.

Succession
It takes extraordinary skill to keep a single storyline – who’ll inherit the business – spinning over four seasons. Succession mastered the ‘event of the episode’ shape and provided unforgettable moments such as Kendall’s rap and Boar on the Floor. It also managed the remarkable – delivering an ending that was both surprising and inevitable. There’s a razor-sharp rawness to Succession, from the visual aesthetic to the line-by-line writing. It’s testament to the deep characterisation and all-round outstanding performances that, even within a single scene, members of the Roy family make you want to cradle them in your arms, before wanting to smash them to pieces.

Friday Night Lights
This show plays a clever trick. It pretends to be a macho sports series but actually it’s a deeply feeling relationship drama about a small-town community. It’s illustrative of three major lessons: a strong sense of place can elevate and authenticate a show; bigger plotlines aren’t always more impactful (S2 was nearly derailed by a murder plot that’s best forgotten); and if you’re clever enough, you can reinvent a show over and over (Coach’s S4 transfer to East Dillon is a genius piece of storytelling). Fundamentally, Coach and Mrs Coach make me want to be a better parent. That’s the power of great drama.

Mr Bates vs the Post Office
I was lucky enough to work on this series about one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history. No one knew it would land with the astonishing impact that it did, bar [ITV drama chief] Polly Hill, who greenlit it without a script, proving that some stories need to be told and bold decision-making equates to great commissioning. The other revelation was the sheer volume of tireless research and detailed personal care that was poured into the show by the producers and screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes. The dedication of passionate storytellers is not to be underestimated. Nor should we ever underestimate the power of television to inspire, enrage or to make change in the world.

My So-Called Life
Axed after one season, yet it’s a cult classic. It’s a time capsule of 90s angst-filled teenage life. It was pioneering, featuring TV’s first openly gay actor playing an out gay character. It dealt with difficult topics without glorifying them (guns, drugs, sex). Watching it as a teenager, I remember feeling ‘seen’ by a show for the first time. It’s a great reminder that we need to engage with future generations of viewers on their terms, reflecting their authentic experiences now. It also highlights that character is everything. Great drama doesn’t have to be astronomically expensive. Character is free.

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Taking a bite of Anpanman

In production, , , , ,

NHK executives Ken Kurasaki and Hiroshi Kashi introduce DQ to the Japanese broadcaster’s latest daily drama – based on the artist behind a classic superhero character – and explain why character development is crucial to making its 15-minute episodes.

Airing since 1961, Japanese broadcaster NHK’s morning serial slot is nothing short of a national phenomenon. The 15-minute daily strand is part of many people’s daily routine, and continues to be one of the network’s top-rating programmes, with new stories launching twice a year.

The slot’s 112th series is the currently airing Anpan, which depicts the life of the artist behind Anpanman, a beloved Japanese superhero with a head made of pastry filled with a red bean paste (the titular Anpan). When he’s not patrolling the neighbourhood, he’s fighting a germ-like character who tries to bully others, while also trying to preserve his head, of which he might offer a piece to a hungry person. He can also regain his health and strength when his Uncle Jam bakes him a new head.

The character has been made famous by picturebooks and then an anime series. This new drama, meanwhile, is inspired by the life of manga artist Yanase Takashi, who published the Anpan books in 1973 until his death in 2013. In the show, when Takashi struggles to find meaning in life, his wife Nobu refuses to let him to give up on his dreams, with the pair having come from humble origins and survived a world war as they continue to overcome adversity at every turn.

Produced by NHK and distributed internationally by NHK Enterprises, the 120-part series debuted in March and stars Takumi Kitamura as Takashi and Mio Imada as Nobu, alongside Yuumi Kawai, Kotaro Yoshida, Takenouchi Yutaka, Sadawo Abe and Nanako Matsushima. The script comes from Miho Nakazono.

Here, Anpan executive producer Ken Kurasaki and Hiroshi Kashi, head of drama productions at NHK, tell DQ more about the story that inspired the series, the production challenges behind making a 15-minute morning show, and the impact streaming has had on how daily dramas are now watched in Japan.

Ken Kurasaki

Introduce us to the story of Anpan.
Kurasaki: Nobu Asada is a trailblazer. As a girl in the 1920s, she would run through town like the wind. After the war, with all that she believed in crumbled away, Nobu determines never to trust anything unless she sees it for herself – and becomes the first post-war female journalist at the local newspaper.

There, she is reunited with her old schoolmate Takashi Yanai. Takashi harbours a dream of becoming a manga artist but is afraid to take the leap. Nobu, meanwhile, tells him to join her in Tokyo, quits her job and relocates. Takashi joins her and the couple begin their life in a rundown apartment that leaks when it rains, but where one can look upon the stars at night when the weather is clear. Together, the two can overcome any hardship. And with this formidable woman by his side, Takashi is destined to create some of the most memorable children’s classics of all time…

Why did you think this would be a good subject for NHK’s morning drama slot?Kurasaki: In recent years, I have found myself unconsciously humming Anpanman’s March more frequently. As we enter an era when life expectancy is reaching 100 years, the older I get, the more I struggle with how to live, and then these lyrics resonate with me even more deeply.

Why was I born, and what should I do with my life? I don’t want to live without knowing the answer 

Life is truly a once-in-a-lifetime journey, and I often wonder how I truly want to live. This is what sparked my interest in Takashi Yanase, who created these lyrics, and his wife Nobu, who continued to support him.

Anpanman is a character that almost every child in Japan gets hooked on at least once in their life, and he is so beloved that he is considered an indispensable character to the Japanese people. Anpanman will give part of his own face to those who are hungry. A true hero of justice is not someone who defeats others, but someone who can sacrifice themselves for others, and I feel that this spirit is what is needed in today’s world.

Anpanman became a hit when Takashi was 69 years old, making him a late bloomer. I thought his story of how Anpanman was born after meeting Nobu would be perfect to depict in the morning drama format over six months, and I was confident it would be a subject viewers would enjoy.

Anpan focuses on Takashi Yanai and Nobu Asada, who are based on a real couple

Who are the main characters and how do we follow them through the series?
Kurasaki: The main characters are Takashi Yanai (similar to his real name, Yanase, but different) and his wife Nobu Asada, who became the first female journalist after the war. She was the driving force behind Takashi, who became a successful manga artist later in life after working in various professions. When he quit his job at the local newspaper to move to Tokyo, or when he left his position at a department store to become a freelance manga artist, it was Nobu’s actions and words that were always there. She had what you might call ‘breakthrough power.’

Without Nobu, the manga artist Takashi Yanai would not have existed. Their tumultuous lives, filled with not only joy but also overcoming hardships and sadness, will surely inspire viewers and share with them the joy of living.

What is the writing process on the show?
Kurasaki: First, we thoroughly researched extensive material about the Yanase couple and about Kochi, which is the location where the couple actually lived in their youth and where the drama is set. We then created a simplified timeline and rough plot for all 26 weeks. We repeatedly refined the overall flow and started by sharing the story’s concept and the message we wanted to convey with the entire team. We aimed to depict known historical facts as faithfully as possible, including the timeline. Based on this, we created the plot, engaged in discussions and then began working on the first draft.

Since a morning drama requires 15 minutes of broadcast every day for six months, speed is crucial. Additionally, when depicting an era we are unfamiliar with, historical research is an important element. While working on the script for the coming week, we also have experts verify the historical details, enhancing the script’s precision until we reach the final version.

Nobu becomes Japan’s first female journalist in the aftermath of the war

What challenges are there making the series?
Kurasaki: As we need to depict the more than 50 years, spanning from pre-war to post-war, the thorough portrayal of Takashi’s war experiences was unavoidable. It was his experience of extreme hunger on the battlefield that later led to the creation of Anpanman. Through the war, Nobu and Takashi experience that “justice can easily be overturned,” and they continuously asked themselves, “So then, what is justice that cannot be overturned?” They spent their lives finding their own answers to this question.

Portraying the war accurately is challenging and requires the team’s commitment. However, in a world where there is a strange trend of claiming one’s own justice and defeating everything unpleasant, we feel it is necessary to confront and address this topic properly.

Hiroshi Kashi

Tell us more about the show’s daily 15-minute format – is there a structure to every episode?
Kashi: There is no specific format. Currently, in Japan, we broadcast five episodes a week, one episode a day from Mondays to Fridays. Just like any regular drama, we aim to create a climax/highlight in each episode and often structure the story with a beginning, development, turn, and conclusion within the week’s arc.

What are the rules for making a shortform daily drama for this morning slot? Does the series need to have a certain tone or style?
Kashi: There are both contemporary and historical stories. Some morning drama series depict real people, while others are entirely original. There are no set rules, but 90% of the protagonists in morning dramas we’ve made so far are women. Viewers spend six months cheering on these protagonists as they overcome various obstacles to pursue their dreams.

In Japan, it has become part of people’s daily routine to watch the morning drama before going to work or school or before starting household chores. We aim to create dramas that are suitable for the start of the day, giving viewers courage and energy. This is why many morning dramas are based on people who have achieved something significant.

And what does production look like, compared to a ‘traditional’ hourlong drama series?
Kashi: Morning dramas are broadcast on weekday mornings for more than a period of six months. Series produced before 2019 typically had 156 episodes, while series produced after 2019 have an average of 120 episodes. By watching the drama daily over a long period, viewers gradually feel more attached to the characters and can deeply empathise with them. Therefore, character development is crucial – not only of the protagonist but also of the surrounding characters, whose stories are usually depicted in parallel. While the overall story’s appeal is necessary, a successful morning drama often creates many captivating characters.

Nobu is the driving force behind husband Takashi, who goes on to become a celebrated manga artist

With record numbers of viewers now watching Anpan on NHK’s streaming and catch-up platform, what is the future for the daily drama after 112 instalments?
Kashi: The environment surrounding television and the media landscape is currently undergoing a major transformation, but production-wise for drama, the values and methods we’ve nurtured over the years have not and probably will not change. As we are doing with Anpan, we will aim to maintain our viewer base through broadcasting while also attracting new viewers through streaming.

Why might the series appeal to international audiences?
Kurasaki: The philosophy and messages of Anpanman and Takashi Yanase have universal appeal that can easily resonate with people not only in Japan but around the world, even if they don’t know Anpanman itself. I hope to share this drama with people worldwide and would love to learn how they perceive it.

Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ

Massan: A previous entry among NHK’s daily dramas, this series aired in 2014, inspired by Masataka Taketsuru and his Scottish wife Jessie Cowan and their attempts to open a whiskey distillery.

Good Morning Call: This romantic 2017 teen series follows Nao, who rents her dream apartment, only to find she will be sharing it with the school heartthrob.

Midnight Diner: An anthology series based on a manga series, it focuses on a late-night diner and its mysterious chef, with each episode exploring the stories of different customers.

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In production

CODA conduct

Producer Sakabe Koji tells DQ how the creative team strived for authenticity when making Japanese miniseries Deaf Voice, in which a man from the CODA (child of deaf adults) community working as a court sign language interpreter becomes involved in a murder case.

IN FOCUS

Breaking the rules

Producer Ayumi Sano and actor Tōko Miura discuss the social issues at the heart of Japanese drama Elpis and reveal how the series is breaking television conventions.

The Director’s Chair

Strange lands

Taku Kato, the director of Japanese film A Stranger in Shanghai, discusses making the single drama for broadcaster NHK, filming in China, and appealing to international audiences.

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Series to Watch: June 2025

Ones to Watch, , , , , , , , , ,

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new series to watch this June, from an outrageous period drama and a fresh detective series to a Sundance dramedy and the conclusion of Netflix’s Squid Game.

Matices (Shades)
From: Spain
Original broadcaster: SkyShowtime
Producer: Secuoya Studios, Stellarmedia
Starring: Maxi Iglesias, Enrique Arce, Hovik Keuchkerian, Juana Acosta, Fariba Sheikhan, Miriam Giovanelli, Eusebio Poncela, Raúl Prieto, Luis Tosar and Elsa Pataky
Launch date: June 5
Psychological thriller Matices tells the story of a renowned and charismatic psychiatrist who gathers six of his patients together at a remote winery to complete their treatment with his famous method, which has achieved a very high cure rate among the most complex and difficult-to-manage patients. After an unusual ceremonial tasting, an unexpected turn of events occurs, with a fateful ending. Following the arrival of an intuitive police lieutenant who takes over the case, the truth is uncovered about the patients’ traumas.

The Survivors
From: Australia
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Tony Ayres Productions
Starring: Yerin Ha, Shannon Berry, Charlie Vickers, Jessica De Gouw, Thom Green, George Mason, Miriama Smith, Julian Weeks, Johnny Carr, Damien Garvey, Don Hany, Martin Sacks, Robyn Malcolm and Catherine McClements
Launch date: June 6
Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever when two people drowned and a young girl went missing in his hometown of Evelyn Bay. Fifteen years later, when Kieran returns with his young family, the guilt that still haunts him resurfaces. Then after the body of a young woman is found on the beach, the town is once again rocked by tragedy – and the investigation into her death threatens to reveal long-held secrets, the truth about the missing girl, and a killer among them.
Watch trailer

Art Detectives
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Acorn TV
Producer: Black Dog Television
Distributor: Dynamic Television
Starring: Stephen Moyer, Nina Singh, Sarah Alexander and Larry Lamb
Launch date: June 9 (US & Canada)
This six-episode series centres on the Heritage Crime Unit, a police department consisting of art-loving DI Mick Palmer (Moyer) and straight-talking DC Shazia Malik (Singh). Together, they solve murders connected to the world of art and antiques, from Old Master paintings to Banksy street art, medieval manuscripts and collectible vinyl. Mick navigates these demanding cases while managing a budding romance with museum curator Rosa (Alexander) and the sudden reappearance of his charismatic father, Ron (Lamb), who just happens to be one of Britain’s most notorious forgers.
Watch trailer

Outrageous
From: UK
Original broadcasters: U&Drama (UK), BritBox (North America)
Producer: Firebird Pictures
Distributor: BBC Studios
Starring: Bessie Carter, Joanna Vanderham, Shannon Watson, Zoe Brough, Orla Hill, Isobel Jesper Jones, Toby Regbo, Anna Chancellor and James Purefoy
Launch dates: June 18 (BritBox), June 19 (U&Drama)
Six-part series Outrageous is the true story of six sisters who refuse to play by the rules, attracting scandal and notoriety at every turn. As the storm clouds of the 1930s gather, the Mitfords face a society in flux, and set out to be part of the change – with sometimes devastating consequences. Amid the crumbling world of the British aristocracy, eldest sibling Nancy navigates love and heartache while her siblings are drawn down unexpected and increasingly divergent paths. Attracted to ungovernable men and drawn to radical ideas, the Mitfords can’t stay out of the headlines – while their bewildered parents try to make sense of their daughters’ behaviour and keep a grip on their failing finances.

We Were Liars
From: US
Original broadcaster: Prime Video
Producers: Universal Television, Amazon MGM Studios
Starring: Emily Alyn Lind, Shubham Maheshwari, Esther McGregor, Joseph Zada, Caitlin FitzGerald, Mamie Gummer, Candice King, Rahul Kohli and David Morse
Launch date: June 18
From co-showrunners Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries, Legacies) and Carina Adly MacKenzie (Roswell, New Mexico, The Originals) and based on the novel by E Lockhart, this mystery drama follows Cadence Sinclair Eastman and her tight-knit inner circle, nicknamed the Liars, during their summer escapades on her grandfather’s New England private island. The Sinclairs are American royalty – known for their good looks, old money and enviable bond – but after a mysterious accident changes Cadence’s life forever, everyone, including her beloved Liars, seems to have something to hide.
Watch trailer

The Waterfront
From: US
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producers: Outerbanks Entertainment, Universal Television
Starring: Holt McCallany, Maria Bello, Jake Weary, Melissa Benoist, Rafael L. Silva, Humberly González, Danielle Campbell and Brady Hepner
Launch date: June 19
From Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson’s Creek) and inspired by true events, The Waterfront dives into the flawed Buckley family, which has long ruled Havenport, North Carolina, dominating everything from the local fishing industry to the town’s restaurant scene. But their fishing empire has started to crumble as patriarch Harlan Buckley (Holt McCallany) recovers from two heart attacks, and his wife Belle (Maria Bello) and son Cane (Jake Weary) venture into the deep end to keep the family businesses afloat. As their attempts spiral out of control and into treacherous waters, Harlan steps back in to take command. Facing her own demons, Buckley daughter Bree (Melissa Benoist) – an addict in recovery who’s lost custody of her son Diller (Brady Hepner) – finds herself entangled in a complicated relationship that could threaten the family’s future forever.

Ironheart
From: US
Original broadcaster: Disney+
Producers: Marvel Studios, Proximity Media
Starring: Dominique Thorne and Anthony Ramos
Launch date: June 24
Set after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ironheart pits technology against magic when genius young inventor Riri Williams (Thorne) – determined to make her mark on the world – returns to her hometown of Chicago. Her unique take on building iron suits is brilliant, but in pursuit of her ambitions, she finds herself wrapped up with the mysterious yet charming Parker Robbins (Ramos), aka ‘The Hood.’
Watch trailer

Hal & Harper
From: US
Original broadcaster: Stan (Australia)
Producers: Bad Bangs, Small Ideas
Distributor: Lionsgate
Starring: Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Mark Ruffalo, Betty Gilpin, Addison Timlin, Havana Rose Liu and Alyah Chanelle Scott
Launch date: June 26
Following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, this dramedy lands in Australia. Hal and Harper are codependent siblings (played by series creator Raiff and Reinhart) doing their best to navigate long-term relationships, friendships and situationships. When their dad (Ruffalo) makes a big announcement, the two are forced to consider the current state of their lives and their complicated childhood. Hal & Harper centres on this relatable yet dysfunctional trio and presents two siblings whose codependency they view as a unique strength rather than a hindrance. Their deep connection is built on a lifetime of inside jokes and hardship, while delving into past trauma through flashbacks featuring Raiff and Reinhart as their younger selves. Hal & Harper charts the family’s evolution and discovery of how their intense bond has influenced their relationships with those they love, for better or worse.

Squid Game S3
From: Korea
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Siren Pictures
Starring: Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Wi Ha-jun, Park Gyu-young, Park Sung-hoon, Yang Dong-geun, Kang Ae-sim, Jo Yuri, Lee David, Roh Jae-won
Launch date: June 27
The global smash-hit series comes to its conclusion, following Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) after losing his best friend in the game and being driven to utter despair by the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who was hiding his true identity to infiltrate the game. Gi-hun persists with his goal to put an end to the game, while the Front Man continues on to his next move, with the surviving players’ choices leading to graver consequences with each round.
Watch trailer

Smoke
From: US
Original broadcaster: Apple TV+
Producers: Apple Studios, Eden Productions, Imperative Entertainment,
Starring: Taron Egerton, Jurnee Smollett, Rafe Spall, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Hannah Emily Anderson, Anna Chlumsky, Adina Porter, Greg Kinnear and John Leguizamo
Launch date: June 27
Inspired by true events, this series (also pictured top) comes from the team behind fellow Apple TV+ true story Blackbird. It follows a troubled detective and an enigmatic arson investigator as they pursue the trails of two serial arsonists.

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Ones to Watch

Series to Watch: May 2025

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new series to watch this May, from a Judy Blume adaptation and a British crime thriller to a tense friendship drama and the next projects from Lost’s JJ Abrams and Succession creator Jesse Armstrong.

 

Ones to Watch

Series to Watch: April 2025

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new series to watch this April, from a revenge thriller featuring British Sign Language and a new take on Sherlock Holmes to the return of The Last of Us and the story behind the world’s first celebrity chef.

 

Ones to Watch

Series to Watch: March 2025

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new series to watch this March, from an Italian historical drama and Spanish crime series to a White House murder mystery and a one-shot limited series from the team behind Boiling Point.

 

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Psych report

SCENE STEALERS, ,

Malpractice creator and writer Grace Ofori-Attah reveals why she wanted to explore the world of psychiatry in season two of the ITV medical thriller, which she hopes will help remind viewers that doctors are human too.

After the success of Malpractice’s debut season in 2023, ITV’s medical thriller returned for a second run this month. But while S1 centres on an A&E doctor caught up in a scandal, the new five-part season shifts the focus to the world of psychiatry.

Written and created by former A&E doctor and consultant psychiatrist Grace Ofori-Attah, Malpractice S2 sees the return of Helen Behan (The Virtues) and Jordan Kouamé (Scoop) as Dr Norma Callahan and Dr George Adjei of the Medical Investigation Unit (MIU), who are once again called in to investigate a doctor accused of malpractice.

When on-call psychiatric registrar Dr James Ford (Tom Hughes) finds himself caught between an anxious new mother’s postnatal check-up and the sectioning of a psychotic patient, it results in a tragic outcome that nobody could have predicted. But as the MIU begins to investigate Dr Ford’s actions, Norma and George find that what appears to be a series of bad choices by one doctor spreads beyond the psychiatric unit to a hospital seemingly at war with itself.

Ofori-Attah is among the executive producers on the series, which is filmed in Belfast and produced by World Productions (Line of Duty). ITV Studios is the distributor.

Here, Ofori-Attah, who is represented by Casarotto-Ramsay, reveals how she chose the arena of medicine on which season two would focus, and how the world and atmosphere of the show’s psychiatric unit was created.

Grace Ofori-Attah

Ofori-Attah: When it came to choosing a new medical specialty to focus the second season of Malpractice on, psychiatry was the obvious choice. Prior to becoming a scriptwriter, I worked as a doctor for more than a decade, doing jobs in various specialties (like A&E, the setting for season one of Malpractice), eventually becoming a consultant psychiatrist.

It’s an area of medicine I love because it’s still relatively unknown compared to other specialties – a complex mixture of biology, psychology and sociology, where the doctor is as much a part of the therapeutic process as any physical medication prescribed.

In the world of TV drama, the scarcity of accurate depictions of severe, debilitating, acute and chronic mental illness, and the settings in which they are treated, is something I’m very conscious of. The most authentic depictions of psychiatry units on British TV are several years old (such as the fantastic Channel 4 series Psychos from 1999, and season three of The Fall on BBC Two in 2016, where the flawless characterisation of patients and staff in a secure forensic psychiatric unit was so mesmerising, it has stayed with me for years as one of the best depictions of psychiatry on TV or film I have ever seen).

This was, therefore, always at the forefront of my mind when writing the scripts and on set in my role as medical advisor and executive producer.

There are several reasons why it’s hard to portray hospital treatment of mental illness accurately on TV. While the general hospital setting is familiar to most people, psychiatric wards and the process of hospital admissions are not. Often, patients are too unwell when they are admitted to recall what it was like, and documentary-style filming is made almost impossible by the complex myriad of capacity and consent issues. As such, I felt a huge responsibility to depict psychiatry with as much authenticity as possible, in order to do justice to the many people affected by these conditions.

Hannah McLean plays Rosie, a new mother experiencing puerperal psychosis.

Hannah McLean gave an incredible, nuanced performance as Rosie Newman, a mother experiencing puerperal psychosis. When we first meet her in Obstetric Outpatients, Rosie is masking and containing her psychotic symptoms, but there are subtle clues in Hannah’s understated performance that all is not well. We were incredibly fortunate to be able to film at Queen’s University Medical School, Belfast, during the students’ summer holiday, which added an extra layer of realism to the shoot. It was here that we filmed some of the most emotionally searing and tense scenes of the show – Rosie’s psychotic breakdown, restraint and eventual death.

I had detailed discussions with Anthony [Philipson, director] about the look and feel of the 136 Suite, and our production designer, Gillian Devenney, created something so true to my experience that I felt stressed whenever I stepped on set. Anthony previously directed 24 hours in A&E, including the first season at King’s College Hospital, where I had worked as an A&E junior doctor, and also at the Maudsley psychiatric hospital across the road.

Our shared experience of working in the same A&E and psychiatric hospital, and Anthony’s experience of filming several medical presentations, meant he was fully able to understand the journey of an acutely psychotic patient from A&E through to the 136 Suite.

I vividly remember the first time I stepped onto the 136 Suite set. It’s a testament to the ability of our fantastic crew and cast that I found these scenes so harrowing to be on set for. Particular praise must go to Tom Hughes as Dr James Ford, who I talked through the internal thinking of a psychiatric doctor at each stage of the admission, and Hannah McLean, who conveyed the distress of a mother in the grips of a psychotic episode so realistically and with such delicacy, without it ever becoming sensationalised. Watching from the monitors took me right back to my days as the on-call psychiatrist, like Dr Ford, except this time I had to stand back and watch the tragedy unfold, overriding my medical instinct to intervene and assist the medical team.

Helen Behan and Jordan Kouamé return as a pair of MIU investigators

Psychiatric nurse Precious Danso (played by Naana Agyei-Ampadu) later transports Rosie to the Psychiatric Unit when she escapes and runs away. Our locations manager, Gareth Hogan, found the perfect location for our psychiatry unit – a former convent. It matched exactly the description I’d written in the very first outline for the season back in December 2022, and in the script for episode one: a visibly neglected Victorian building, decaying on the inside.

Gareth showed this to our block one director, Anthony, and producer Chrissy Skinns, and they were sold. In Britain, there is a legacy of crumbling Victorian asylum-style psychiatric units tucked away behind more modern general hospital buildings. We were fortunate that the building, due to be completely renovated, was ours to do what we wanted with, so we were able to get in there and design a complete ward with a patient lounge, clinic rooms, doctors’ and nurses’ offices, and patient bedrooms.

Because we were filming there for a number of weeks and because psychiatric inpatients are often admitted for several weeks, Anthony came up with the idea of giving each supporting artist a psychiatric diagnosis with specific traits to help them stay in character throughout. We wanted to recreate the ‘home’ environment specific to psychiatric wards.

The tension the cast and crew created felt real. Watching the miscommunication and misunderstandings build up to their traumatic conclusion made me anxious about past decisions I’d made. There are so many things that can go wrong in any one shift when you’re a doctor. It left me feeling it’s a wonder any of us make it through our medical careers without being investigated.

The doctor at the centre of the case is psychiatric registrar James Ford, played by Tom Hughes

We had police advisers, intimacy coordinators and psychological support for anyone on set affected by what we were filming. The restraint and full-face hood [worn by one patient] might look controversial and excessive but, in practice, I’ve seen worse. I talked Tom through the symptoms a psychiatrist would be trying to illicit from Rosie with each question and what techniques would be employed to try to engage her attention.

The role of the psychiatrist is to try to understand Rosie’s mindset, questioning without leading her or distressing her further, while also trying to stay immune to the fear and stress of the staff around you. You have to appear calm and confident, even if inside your heart is racing and you are terrified.

But really, it’s like Dr Ford says in such a powerfully understated way to Rosie when they’re alone on the roof: “I get scared too,” because at the end of the day, what I hope Malpractice shows is that doctors are human. We might make mistakes but, when we turn up for work, we’re trying to do the best for our patients.

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Trigger Point: This ITV drama stars Vicky McClure as Lana Washington, a member of a bomb-disposal team working for London’s Metropolitan Police.

Blue Lights: The BBC police drama centres on three rookies joining the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) against the backdrop of crime in Belfast.

Line of Duty: Jed Mercurio’s BBC drama following the members of AC-12, an anti-corruption unit determined to bring corrupt officers to justice.

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Raising heart rates

Malpractice writer Grace Ofori-Attah and star Niamh Algar discuss the making of the ITV medical thriller, in which an A&E doctor comes under investigation and spirals into a dangerous conspiracy.

ON LOCATION

Nice to meet you

A pair of parents face a devastating dilemma in ITV psychological thriller Playing Nice. DQ heads to Cornwall to meet stars James Norton and James McArdle and the team behind the this adaptation of JP Delaney’s novel of the same name.

 

STAR POWER

Making a Point

As the BBC serves up restaurant drama Boiling Point, star and executive producer Hannah Walters tells DQ about its journey from short film to the small screen, and how she and husband Stephen Graham are telling stories through their own company, Matriarch Productions.

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Honourable mention

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Portocabo executives Alfonso Blanco and Nina Hernandez speak to DQ about how they adapted Israeli drama Kvodo (Your Honor) for Spanish audiences as Honor, filming the series in Seville and why remakes still appeal to viewers.

Since its debut in 2017, Israeli drama Kvodo (Your Honor) has taken the world by storm. While the original series has been sold into numerous territories, the format has been adapted in almost a dozen countries around the globe.

Created by Ron Ninio and Shlomo Mashiach and produced by Yes TV and Koda Communications, the show follows a respected senior judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run accident, leading to difficult choices, moral dilemmas and terrible consequences as he attempts to keep the crime a secret.

Airing across two seasons, its cast includes Yoram Hattab, Erez Oved, Ilanit Ben -Yaakov, Tom Hagi and Lucy Aharish. Yes Studios distributes the original series and the format.

Alfonso Blanco

Most famously, the series was adapted in the US by Showtime, with Bryan Cranston, Hunter Doohan, Lilli Kay, Michael Stuhlberg and Hope Davis leading the cast. It has also been remade in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Turkey, India, Russia, China and Ukraine.

The Spanish version, titled Honor, follows Judge Daniel Romero, whose son Alex accidentally kills a motorist, panics and flees the scene. When the victim turns out to be the son of a dangerous gangster, Romero senior decides to cover up the crime, risking everything for his son.

Produced by Atresmedia TV in collaboration with Portocabo for Atresplayer and Antena 3, it stars Dario Grandinetti, José Luis García Perez and Paco Márquez. The series was screened earlier this year as part of the Berlinale Series Market Selects at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Here, Portocabo executive producer Alfonso Blanco and content director Nina Hernandez discuss remaking the original Israeli series for Spanish audiences.

Please introduce us to the series.
Martin Romero is an honourable judge in Seville, a man of unquestionable moral principles. When his son Alex is involved in an accident, killing the son of Vicente Aguilar, the most dangerous criminal in the city, Romero will have to make one of the hardest decisions of his life: save his son or do what is right.

What was your interest in remaking Kvodo?
Kvodo presents a compelling and thought-provoking premise: a case where moral and professional obligations collide with a parent’s deep-seated instinct to protect their child from danger. The series also explores the painful reality that parents cannot always prevent their children from choosing their own path – even when it leads to suffering. This global premise contains the possibility of many local adaptations, which allows for a deeper connection with the audience.

Nina Hernandez

What are the format points that are integral to the story?
At the heart of this narrative is Judge Romero, an honourable judge caught in a profound moral dilemma, where his professional duty clashes with his human instincts. This tension sets the stage for a gripping drama that unfolds between his professional responsibilities and personal loyalties.

In contrast, Vicente Aguilar, the victim’s father, faces his own struggle – grappling with the devastating loss of a son, where the natural desire for revenge often overshadows the calm that justice needs. When the ethos of his family is far from legal, as a dangerous criminal that controls the drug routes into the city, the drama is served.

With a Shakespearean structure, the story masterfully blends thriller and crime drama in equal measure.

How has the series been adapted for Spanish audiences?
The series was adapted by setting it in Seville, the heart of Andalusia [in the south of the country]. The choice of Seville and Cádiz was clear from the very beginning, as we found in them the same elements that would empower the drama, leading it to the next level.

Seville is a city where family lies at the core of its culture, shaping social life, values and daily routines. Deeply rooted in tradition and community, it is a place defined by strong intergenerational bonds.

Seville is also a city of great contrasts, where luxurious mansions and an exceptionally beautiful historic centre closely coexist with areas like Las Tres Mil Viviendas, a neighbourhood where life is a struggle. It is a city of extreme beauty, both for its history and its natural surroundings, but it is also a place defined by the stark contrast between wealth and marginalisation. That duality was essential for the series.

Beyond its cultural significance, Seville-Cadiz also serves as Andalusia’s logistical hub, a legacy of its colonial past when its port was the gateway for goods arriving from the Americas. Today, it’s become a key entry point for drug cartels, adding another layer of complexity to the story. We couldn’t have hoped for a better setting for this intense, family-centred crime drama.

The Spanish adaptation of Honor stars Dario Grandinetti as Judge Daniel Romero

Did you consider the impact of the US adaptation, and others, when making Honor?
When we began developing Honor for Atresmedia, besides Kvodo, only the US version was available. The enormous impact with Bryan Cranston and the shift of perspective from an ensemble cast to a character-driven narrative was a major source of inspiration for us. We believed this approach would be the best way to present the story to a Spanish audience.

For the setting, we chose Seville – a city that shares similarities with New Orleans [the location of the US series]. Both are located on the shores of major rivers and have deeply stratified societies, making them ideal for this type of story. This allowed us to create the triangular narrative, where the plot is constantly shifting between interconnected yet distinct social groups that function as a system while remaining clearly divided.

In terms of tone, crime drama is a highly popular genre in Spain, aligning well with Portocabo’s previous successes such as Hierro and Rapa.

Did you decide to change the story in any way?
As we analysed both the Israeli and the US versions, we realised we needed to move away from their storylines. The strong premise needed to be kept, offering [the chance for a second season], but in the Spanish version, the dynamics are different. What we wanted to underline, apart from the personal moral struggles and natural reaction to the loss of a beloved, was the rupture of a fragile ecosystem and how it impacts them all.

How was the series developed?
We set up a writers room with a select team of Andalusian and Galician writers – Samuel Pinazo [Malaka], Roberto G Mendez [Auga Seca] and Daniel Martín S. Parayuelo [Isabel], spearheaded by Nina [Weiss & Morales]. It was particularly important to incorporate different voices that could bring the cultural baggage necessary to make it feel authentic.

Kvodo, the original Israeli version of the drama

Who are the lead actors and what can you tell us about their performances?
When designing the character of the judge, we realised we needed someone who could represent enormous humanity and convey emotions even in extreme situations. That’s when we thought of Darío Grandinetti, who we had already worked with on Hierro and who has that unique ability to connect deeply with the audience.

Additionally, we followed our ethos of supporting local talent, something we applied on previous projects like Hierro and Rapa. For this series, it was essential to create an ensemble cast of Andalusian actors, as it was crucial to bring authenticity to the story. We ended up working with more than 40 Andalusian actors, including the renowned José Luis García and María Morales, as well as emerging talent.

This cast ensured that the audience felt emotionally connected to the story and the reality of the setting in which the events unfold.

What challenges did you face in development or production?
When tackling production in Seville, one of our main challenges was assembling a fully local team. We strived to involve as many professionals as possible who had an intimate understanding of the city – not only in terms of the cast but also within the technical and creative teams.

We believe the best way to bring authenticity to a story is to surround it with those who know it firsthand. This not only grounds the narrative, conveying reality, but also creates an energy and a level of commitment that adds significant value to the series.

We managed to form a team composed of 90% local professionals – something that was our goal and considered essential, as we believe in supporting and strengthening local industries wherever we shoot.

Bryan Cranston in Your Honor, Showtime’s US adaptation

How was the series filmed to present the format in a new way?
What makes this version unique was placing the plot in the sun-soaked south of Andalusia. This created a high contrast with the characters’ descent to the underworld, elevating the dramatic value of the story.

What is the appetite among viewers to watch local adaptations when they might already have seen the original or other versions?
Honor has such a strong premise from the outset and offers so much room for exploration and new developments that, despite the widespread popularity of the American version, the Spanish adaptation has garnered a highly significant following.

Setting this legal thriller in Seville and Cádiz grounds the story in a location that exudes authenticity and naturally integrates into its surroundings. Combined with the appeal of offering fiction set outside the usual locations, these have undoubtedly been two key factors in the success of this version.

Why should viewers watch the series?
Honor is a series that anyone can relate to, as it pushes its characters to the limits of justice, morality and how far a person is willing to go to protect their kin. It is a gripping legal drama where the line between right and wrong blurs with every twist in the story.

Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ

Perdida (Stolen Away): Antena 3 and Netflix’s emotional thriller is about parents willing to do anything to find out where their daughter is, leading father Antonio to make the risky decision to enter a dangerous Colombian prison.

Rapa: In this Movistar Plus+ series, Maite, a Guardia Civil sergeant, and high-school teacher Tomás become obsessed with solving the murder of local mayor Amparo Seoane, after Tomás is the only witness to the killing.

Hierro: A Movistar Plus+ and Arte crime drama, the story centres on Judge Candela Montes and Díaz, who conduct their own investigations into the same crime – the death of Fran, who is found dead on the day he was due to marry Díaz’s daughter, with Díaz the main suspect.

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SCENE STEALERS

Crime in the Canaries

Portocabo creative executive producer Alfonso Blanco reveals how broadcasters from Spain and Germany came together to back crime drama Weiss & Morales and discusses how the show utilises its Canary Islands setting.

 

DQ TV

Oh brother

Victoria Guerra, the star of Spanish-Portuguese thriller Agua Seca (Dry Water), introduces the series and reveals why she was drawn to playing a woman who becomes embroiled in the mystery of her brother’s suspicious death.

IN FOCUS

Holding out for Hierro

The Canary Island of El Hierro lends its name to Spanish crime drama Hierro, a ‘southern noir’ story of the hunt for a killer. Executive producer Alfonso Blanco reveals all.

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Honours even

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Blue Lights, Mr Loverman, Baby Reindeer, Industry and Mr Bates vs The Post Office were all among the scripted winners at the BAFTA TV Awards 2025. DQ was backstage to hear from the winners on a night when the variety of British television was celebrated.

After a year of British television in 2024 that boasted a number of agenda-setting, headline-making titles – from Baby Reindeer and Mr Bates vs The Post Office to Gavin & Stacey: The Finale and more – the scripted prizes were suitably shared at the BAFTA TV Awards 2025.

The BBC’s Belfast-set crime drama Blue Lights was named Best Drama for its second season, while ITV factual series Mr Bates vs The Post Office won the Limited Drama category.

BBC drama Mr Loverman was the only show on the night to win in two categories, with Lennie James taking Leading Actor and co-star Ariyon Bakare winning Supporting Actor.

Marisa Abela won the Leading Actress award for her performance in BBC and HBO coproduction Industry, while Supporting Actress winner Jessica Gunning completed an enviable haul of awards for her role in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer.

Alma’s Not Normal won the Scripted Comedy award for its second season

Sophie Willan’s BBC comedy Alma’s Not Normal triumphed in the Scripted Comedy category for its second season, with Ruth Jones winning Female Performance in a Comedy for her role as the iconic Nessa in Gavin & Stacey: The Finale. Danny Dyer won Male Performance in a Comedy Programme for his role in Sky’s Mr Bigstuff.

The BBC landed two more awards, with EastEnders claiming Soap & Continuing Drama and Quiet Life taking the prize for Short Form. The team behind Disney+ series Shōgun took home the BAFTA in the International category.

Meanwhile, the Television Special Award was presented to ITV for commissioning Mr Bates vs The Post Office, recognising the power of public service television in telling home-grown stories that have a significant impact, leading to societal change.

The TV Awards followed on from the BAFTA TV Craft Awards, where Baby Reindeer, Rivals and Slow Horses each scooped two prizes each.

As the awards were handed out, DQ was backstage at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in central London to hear from some of the winners in the scripted categories.

The Blue Lights team pose with their BAFTA masks

Drama Series: Blue Lights
The BBC’s Belfast-set crime drama won the prize for its second season against competition from Sherwood, Supacell and Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light.

Louise Gallagher, co-creator and coproducer: It’s just down to the incredible writing from Declan [Lawn] and Adam [Patterson], and our incredible cast who just really embodied all the characters and brought them to life. [They say] ‘Don’t do a cop show’ but we did and it’s worked out really well.

Stephen Wright, co-creator and producer: I’ll say this over and over again, it’s just great scripts and great character writing. And once we got into a run with the show, we have a beautiful cast and a fantastic crew who are fully invested in the show. That kind of collective ambition is what, for me, makes the show successful. Make it with love.

Declan Lawn, co-creator, co-writer and co-director: In season two, the season we won this for, we told the story of victims and survivors of the Troubles. We spent some time with those people, quite a lot of time, and so did the actors, and the most touching thing for me was when victims and survivors of the Troubles got in touch afterwards to say thank you for that. I was a journalist for 16 years; I covered these stories a lot. But there’s something about drama that allows you to get to the emotional heart of things. I hope that helps some people in that position.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office was also recognised with the Special Television Award

Limited Series: Mr Bates vs The Post Office
The ITV factual drama told the story of what has been deemed the greatest miscarriage of justice in British history, when hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting owing to a defective IT system. The show has made a real-world impact, igniting a public scandal and leading to new legislation in Parliament, yet the fight for compensation continues amid delays to payouts.

Gwyneth Hughes, writer: It’s a British story. I couldn’t believe it was happening in my country. When I first heard about it, I thought, ‘That can’t be true. That can’t be right. That kind of thing doesn’t happen here.’ Maybe I was being really naive, but it’s the sort of story you imagine happening in Russia, China, where there are bureaucracies that are out of control and little people don’t have any power at all. To find out that it was happening here was very distressing. The particular thing that was happening to people that really upset me and kept me awake at night was that people were told, ‘You’re on your own, this isn’t happening to anyone else, you’re the only one.’ They were repeatedly told that – that is so cruel. It was the arbitrary nature of the power imbalance and the arbitrary nature of cruelty that the Post Office knew they were not alone and they still told them they were. I don’t understand it. I still don’t understand it and I’m really proud to have been part of fighting against it, fighting to put it right in a small way.

Leading Actress: Marisa Abela, Industry
Abela scooped the prize for her role as Yasmin in the third season of BBC and HBO coproduction Industry, a series about a group of young graduates setting out in the cut-throat world of city finance.

Season three felt like a massive step up for the show and I feel like that’s just continuing and continuing, so I’m excited to see the response season four gets, which we’re filming right now. I love that the people who watch the show enjoy it. I don’t mind how many people that is – as long as the ones who do watch it love it, that’s great. Obviously, the more the merrier.

Yasmin in season three is in a real mode of change. That season was all about change for her. It was all about a shift in who she was and what she needed to do. Yasmin was always a girl that came from a lot of privilege and just had things handed to her, and in season three we saw what it looked like when Yasmin took things for herself, and that just continues into season four. We’re seeing this evolution of Yasmin as a woman who is desperate for control.

I won’t be the person to ruin it [season four] for people, but it’s epic. The stakes have gotten higher and higher each season, and that definitely doesn’t slow down with season four.

Leading Actor: Lennie James, Mr Loverman
Save Me and The Walking Dead star James took home his first acting BAFTA for his role in this BBC drama based on Bernardine Evaristo’s novel. He plays Barrington Jedidiah Walker – Barry to his mates – who has been married to Carmel (Sharon D Clarke) for 50 years. But while she suspects him of cheating on her with other women, she doesn’t know he has actually been leading a secret, passionate affair with his best friend and soulmate, Morris (Ariyon Bakare).

I had a stock phrase about playing Barrington, which is that he made it so that every time I went to work, I had to go to work. I couldn’t cruise, I couldn’t take it easy, particularly playing him as a 75-year-old man and sometimes on the same day playing him as a 42-year-old man. So physically, I had to be clued in. He’s also a deeply complicated, nuanced and flawed character. In the book, it is so immediate, his complications. It’s not as simple as he’s just in the closet. There’s much more going on. It’s him as a successful black businessman. It’s him in his mind as a successful father, a successful grandfather. And navigating all of those complications in his life and in his character took hard work and concentration. I was very happy that the environment that Hong [Khaou], our director, created and our crew followed made it possible for us to try anything, go anywhere and do the job we really wanted to do.

It’s a queer old black couple, and that’s important because it’s a story even less told than just it being a queer black couple or a couple of colour. I hope it sparks conversations in the wider community and in my community in particular. I hope it starts a conversation that leads to people being able to be their true selves, both within their families and within their communities.

Supporting Actress: Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer
Gunning adds a BAFTA award to her Golden Globe and Emmy prizes for playing Martha, a woman who forms an unhealthy attachment to barman and comedian Donny (series creator and writer Richard Gadd), leading her to stalk him online and in person.

When I first got the scripts through, I was blown away, especially when I read the final moment of the last episode. I got goosebumps and I just thought, ‘You know what, this could be really special.’ Then I wore them [Netflix and producer Clerkenwell Films] down because I went in to audition for it about five times, which is a bit ‘Martha’ of me really, in hindsight. But I just kept thinking, ‘I think I know how to do this,’ and if she was played like a villain or a baddie, it would have been a real shame because I actually saw it as a love story. That’s the other way you can play it, really. But I knew when I read the scripts it was one of the best things I’ve ever read and one of the best characters I’ve ever had the chance to play.

Supporting Actor: Ariyon Bakare, Mr Loverman
A visibly stunned Bakare took home the award for his portrayal of Morris, who has shared a secret, passionate affair with his best friend and soulmate Barrington (Lennie James) for years.

I was homeless when I was 14. You don’t think when you’re homeless that you’re going to end up becoming something like this in the end. I never thought I’d ever be able to stand in front of a beautiful array of fabulous actors and go, ‘Yeah, I’m a part of your team.’

We don’t really get to see these stories come out of the Caribbean community, especially queer stories, and it breaks boundaries. It’s about two older guys, it’s a gay story, and it’s our community telling the stories, so it makes me realise that all stories need to be told. No matter where they’re from, whatever culture, there’s an array of stories of Britain and we should just make that become part of our rainbow.

We’ve had reactions on both sides [of the Caribbean community], where people have been quite negative and then we’ve had a plethora of people really being exceptionally positive. Even a couple of days ago, I had a woman come up to me and just grab me and say, ‘Thank you for telling this story,’ because these stories are there. On the press tour, we had a young man who was a Muslim and he was saying that he found it difficult to tell his parents, and he was really glad that this story was able to open that communication with them. That’s all I wanted to happen, that we can open communication and that people can be free to be who they want to be.

Female Performance in a Comedy: Ruth Jones, Gavin & Stacey: The Finale
Five years after she last played Nessa in the BBC comedy, co-creator and co-writer Jones reunited with James Corden to bring the hugely successful show to a close.

I’ve had a 17-year journey with this character, which is quite a rare thing, and to have worked with the people I’ve worked with on the show over this period of time, the cast, the crew, the production team, everybody has just been such a joy. It’s just been a really lovely rounding up of this astonishing nearly 20 years.

I love working with James Corden, I really do, and I hope we will carry on working together. We just both like sitting in a room together. We do a lot of napping. We do write as well when we get going.

After 2019, people asked a lot [about the future of the series] because it was left on a cliffhanger. But now, because it’s a finale, you don’t really want to see [Corden’s character] Smithy and Nessa being in that domestic setup, because the whole joy of them was that ‘will they/won’t they?’ Do you really want to see Nessa and Smithy talking about putting the bins out? You don’t really, so I think you’ll have to imagine it in your head.

Male Performance in a Comedy: Danny Dyer, Mr Bigstuff
Former EastEnders favourite and first-time BAFTA nominee Dyer was emotional as he collected this award for his role in Sky comedy series Mr Bigstuff. He plays Lee, who brings chaos to the lives of his estranged brother Glen and Glen’s fiancée Kirsty. Season two is due to air this summer.

I can’t believe I’ve nicked one of these, especially for comedy performance. It was so random, the whole thing. The world is so random at the moment anyway, so I suppose it’s justified in a way. I’m really proud of the show and [creator and co-star] Ryan Sampson, in particular, who wrote this with me in mind and said he would never have made it without me and gave me all the funny lines. It’s incredible. He wrote this show and he’s a straight man. For my first outing to do a scripted comedy series, and to nick one of these, is mental to me.

You’re only as good as the job in front of you, and it’s [about] getting the opportunities. As an actor, it’s difficult to even get a job. So to get to this stage where you’re nicking awards and stuff, it is a journey. I’ve been around a long time. EastEnders changed my career for so many different reasons, but unless you roll the dice and you decide to see what else is out there, you’ll never know. I happened to do that and it’s working out really well for me at the moment. I’m just really grateful to still be working.

I start shooting on Wednesday for Rivals S2, 12 episodes. It’s so lavish and lush and I’m very excited about it. We’ve already done Mr Bigstuff S2 as well, that’s already in the can. I think it comes out in July.

This series [of Rivals] is so much better than the first. It’s that ‘difficult second album’ thing, honestly, but the writers and the producers have absolutely nailed it. I can’t wait for people to see it. It’s a beautiful job for me.

The second season of historical drama Shōgun is set to begin production

International: Shōgun
The epic historical drama set in 1600s Japan took home the International prize ahead of the start of production for its second season.

Justin Marks, writer and exec producer: What we can say we’re really excited about [in S2] is there’s a 10-year time jump and, just given the history we are working off of, it gives us a lot of ground to grow the show in a lot exciting new directions. What’s most important is to honour the legacy of James Clavell’s book [on which S1 was based] when it comes to the characterisations and really the brilliant plotting and world building that went on and the great love stories. All of these things you can expect in the next season, especially the love story part. There’s still a good one out there.

Rachel Kondo, writer and exec producer: The show is difficult to watch, and we asked a lot of them [our audience]. Strangely, by asking a lot the audience, they had to set 10 hours out of their lives. They had to set their phones down, too [with the show featuring a lot of subtitles]. Everything was trickier and, for some reason, they responded. We’re hoping that maybe they sensed the care that was put into it and therefore they were generous enough to lend us their care in watching it.

EastEnders exec producer Chris Clenshaw claims the show’s award

Soap: EastEnders
The BBC’s EastEnders was named Best Soap in its 40th year, taking the prize just a fortnight after receiving the Special Craft Award at the BAFTA TV Craft Awards in recognition of its long-term commitment to nurturing new talent.

Kate Oates, BBC Studios head of genre: Chris [Clenshaw] has been leading the show for the last few years, and through him and the team, we’ve broken boundaries with the genre and told stories in different ways, but it’s always been really characterised and really true to the DNA of the show.

Chris Clenshaw, outgoing executive producer: That’s the beautiful thing about our genre. You can have everything – you can have a camp, higher-concept thriller, and you can be telling a sexual assault storyline at the same time. Fortunately, there’s something for everyone. That’s what’s soap’s done so well for so many years, and that’s what it’s got to continue to do.

Luke Rollason

Short Form: Quiet Life
This largely silent BBC comedy short sees Geoffrey, played by co-creator Luke Rollason, reassess his life and values after a social media meltdown.

Luke Rollason: It’s extremely validating [to win an award] when you’re trying to make work that sometimes might feel a little bit out of the mainstream and it feels like so often when you speak to commissioners, especially in comedy, time and time again, you’re told that they’re only really looking for the kind of things that are already achieving success. The Short Form category is so important. I’m so glad that channels are still making shortform, because it’s a place that people can experiment. It feels really amazing for something that’s a little unusual to be recognised like that.

Ruth Pickett, director: Sometimes there can be a feeling in comedy that maybe it’s not necessarily always taken as seriously as other genres, so it’s absolutely phenomenal to win this. Obviously, with comedy, you set out to bring joy to the audience. Also, as a female director, there are not very many of us, especially in comedy. I’m just so unbelievably grateful.

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Ones to Watch

Friendly rivals

After another stellar year of British drama, Baby Reindeer, Slow Horses and Rivals each took two trophies apiece at the BAFTA TV Crafts Awards 2025. DQ was backstage at the ceremony to chat to the winners about their work.

 

The Director’s Chair

Bringing books to life

Ahead of the BAFTA TV Craft Awards, nominated directors Peter Kosminsky and Molly Manners reflect on their respective work behind the camera on BBC historical drama Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light and Netflix’s One Day, explaining how the source material for each was brought to the screen.

The Writers Room

Script secrets

How are writers currently navigating the troubled British drama industry, and what were the unique storytelling methods used in making Baby Reindeer, One Day and Industry? The BAFTA-nominated writers of these shows take DQ inside their acclaimed works and explain why it’s still worth taking risks.

 

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Cutting through

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Doctor Who writer Inua Ellams gives DQ the inside track on penning The Story & The Engine, his first episode of the iconic sci-fi franchise, and discusses staging a story set in a single location and the craft work involved in building a puzzling denouement for the Doctor.

In the latest episode of Doctor Who, Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor and companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) travel to Lagos, where the mysterious Barber reigns supreme.

Here, the Doctor discovers a world where stories have power, but can he stop the Spider and its deadly web of revenge?

Debuting on Saturday on BBC One in the UK and Disney+ worldwide, it marked the first episode written by playwright Inua Ellams. The cast also features Ariyon Bakare, Sule Rimi, Michelle Asante, Stefan Adegbola and Jordan Adene, while Makalla McPherson directs.

Here, Ellams, who is represented by Casarotto Ramsay, reveals his long fascination with Doctor Who, how his episode was inspired by one of his plays and the key to the story’s puzzling ending.

Inua Ellams

Ellams: I don’t quite recall how I began watching Doctor Who, but the love affair started when I was a kid in Nigeria, about nine or 10 years old, between 1993 and 1996. Whoever programmed and broadcast the show across Nigeria must have been a Tom Baker fan, because his episodes as the Doctor are the only ones I can remember, his long scarf flapping as he ran.

Instead of a typical 90s television, my father had a projector the size of check-in luggage. The lamps would constantly overheat, the internal fans would kick in to cool them down, and even with the air-conditioning unit turned on, the lamps would work hard. To be able to hear the show, we’d have to turn the volume up, and with the soundtrack and sound effects thundering in my ears, and the projector splashed onto a large screen, I’d forget about Nigeria’s reality and slip into the Doctor’s fantasy, into the TARDIS, into impossible battles and terrifying aliens. It was there I began to dream, not of what the world was but what it might become.

I had a very different initial idea for my episode, something I may return to in future, but when I sat in Russell T Davies’ office and explained it, he appreciated it but softly countered with a question. He asked if I’d consider writing something set in one location, in a barber shop, and I smiled because this was something I knew I could do very well.

Years before, I’d written a play called Barber Shop Chronicles and told a story that unfolded in six different African barber shops but set on one single day. Russell had seen the play at the National Theatre and wondered what a similar setting and world might mean for the Doctor. The play is currently on the GCSE syllabus, meaning lots of young adults have been studying a world I had already created.

In many ways, to bring the Doctor into a similar world, a parallel one, to take him back to Africa, was beyond my wildest dreams; this was a story I’d never imagined would be possible to tell.

The Story & The Engine, the first Doctor Who episode written by Ellams, is set in Lagos

Dot & Bubble, the most emotive episode (in my opinion) of Ncuti’s first season, was set in the world of Finetime: a seemingly happy and harmonious planet of people who are terrorised by giant, space-travelling slugs. Ruby Sunday (played by Millie Gibson) and the Doctor do their best to guide as many people as possible to safety, leading them through a maze and puzzle of dangers to an underground port. Having done so, at the very end, the people refuse to let the Doctor actually take them to safety. They refuse to be physically near him.

Though it isn’t explicit, it is made very clear that this is because of the Doctor’s skin. Seeing the Doctor cry out of anger and frustration hurt. It left a wound in me that, in many ways, my episode healed, because Black barber shops heal these exact societal wounds. I think of Dot & Bubble as the companion piece to my episode, The Story & The Engine. They are definitely separate, stand-alone episodes, but to watch both would deepen an appreciation and understanding of the themes and issues alive within them.

Most of my episode is set inside the shop, and there, the Doctor argues and questions, supports and challenges, and begins to figure out the problem with the world he has just walked into. There are three other barber shop clients there with him, and the dynamic between all of them was not only a joy to write, but pure ecstasy to see come alive on set.

Most of the episode unfolds within the confines of a barber shop

I spent as much time on set as I could throughout the filming process because I wanted to support the cast and creatives in any way they needed. Most of the drama takes place there, but the Doctor needed to change the stakes, to break out dramatically to a new playing field.

In a sequence towards the end of the episode (one of many magical sequences), the Doctor and Belinda escape from the barber shop floor and find themselves in a subterranean maze. They are completely and utterly lost, but the Doctor knows the way. There’s a map braided into his hair! The camera bends upwards so we can see his hairstyle, then we zoom out and up to get an aerial, top-down shot of the Doctor and Belinda. Here, we get a sense of the challenge they face, before zooming back down and into the action.

It was a tricky but beautifully executed shot of several moving parts that required all teams working in unison: hair, makeup and wardrobe, the art department and set design, and the incredible special effects team who took a simple stage direction of mine and transformed it into something breathtaking.

The episode is rooted in, and full of, aspects of Nigerian, Ghanaian, British, French and American history. It also pays homage to people in my life: my barber, my partner, my uncle, my Nigerian school relay team, and several theatre-maker friends of mine. It also has references to old poems and plays I have written. But all that is backdrop to the drama on screen, to the Doctor and his companion on an incredible adventure, trying to protect the universe from itself.

Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ

Dark: Netflix’s German supernatural mystery thriller explores the fallout when two children go missing from a small town, revealing its sinful past and the double lives and fractured relationships among four families.

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Severance: This Apple TV+ series introduces a team of office workers whose consciousnesses have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, they start a journey to discover the truth about their jobs at Lumon Industries.

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Playing second fiddle

IN FOCUS, , , , ,

Finnish dramedy Supporting Actor explores society’s obsession with success through a frustrated actor striving to become a screen star. Producer Max Malka and writer-director Niklas Lindgren tell DQ about their partnership behind the scenes and what they wanted to say about the film and television business.

Fresh from exploring the clash between the artistic and commercial demands of the dance industry in Dance Brothers, producer Endemol Shine Finland (ESF) has turned to the film and television industry for its latest project.

Supporting Actor centres on Aki Kurki (Kari Ketonen), a talented but difficult actor who has been stuck in supporting roles, never landing the leading parts. When a fortune teller reveals this is due to a curse that has been placed on him, he must begin a process of self-reflection.

However, his lifelong focus on fame has broken many relationships that he now has to mend to find out who is responsible, with the support of one of the only people he can truly trust – his manager (played by Antti Holma).

Written and directed by Niklas Lindgren (Idiomatic), Supporting Actor is produced by ESF for broadcasters Nelonen and Ruutu, with ESF duo Max Malka and Unne Sormunen as executive producers.

Here, Malka and Lindgren discuss skewering the film and television business, and how Lindgren balanced writing and directing a series that blends comedy and drama.

Max Malka

Hi Max, please introduce us to the story of Supporting Actor.
Malka: Our lead character is Aki Kurki, a well-known but overlooked actor who is known for his high artistic standards and difficult personality. Despite his talent and hard work, he’s always relegated to supporting roles while less deserving actors land leading parts and achieve true success.
He feels like he’s cursed. Aki visits a fortune teller who confirms that he is, indeed, actually cursed. Aki has no choice but to embark on a quest to discover who cursed him and why. Unfortunately, he has a lot of burned bridges to cross before he gets to the truth – making the journey far more convoluted than he ever imagined.

What are the origins of the project?
Malka: Niklas wanted to explore society’s obsession with success, and how we even define it or measure it. He also had the idea of writing a role for the well-known actor Kari Ketonen to finally see him shine as the main character. Having known Niklas for 20 years and always being a fan of his work, I felt very lucky that he approached me with this project at an early stage.

What does the series say about the acting business?
Lindgren: I love actors and admire their perseverance in a business that can be very harsh and highly competitive. From a storytelling perspective, the drama largely comes from the competitiveness of the business, making it a natural backdrop for themes like success, ambition and envy. We were also interested in the versatility of a freelance actor’s career, and we see Aki Kurki performing in an art house drama, the theatre, a Nordic noir, a dystopian sci-fi film and even recording audiobooks, just to name a few.

Malka: It was fun to have our main character say the uncensored truths most people think but never dare to say. It’s not just about the film industry, but also balancing career ambitions with family responsibilities.

Supporting Actor stars Kari Ketonen as actor Aki, who is tired of playing secondary roles

What can you tell us about Aki’s journey through the series?
Lindgren: Aki begins with selfish motives – he wants to achieve the success that’s always eluded him, and the only thing standing in his way is the curse. To break the curse, he must reconnect with those he has wronged in one way or another. This inevitably has an effect on him, especially when he tries to fix his relationship with his estranged teenage daughter. He begins to reassess his priorities and goals, and his personal journey becomes one of atonement. The tension between selfish desires and the need for redemption creates an interesting and original dynamic for both comedy and drama.

Malka: This show is a grounded dramedy, with the supernatural element of the curse introduced in the first episode. By the end of the season, we reveal the truth behind the curse, and Aki’s personal journey frames the story.

Do we meet any other important characters?
Malka: Aki’s journey to break the curse involves reconnecting with many people from his past. And being over 50, he’s had a lot of time to burn bridges. On his list of potential culprits are family members like his ex-partners Ronja and Erika; his estranged teenage daughter Aada; a younger actor apprentice named Benjamin, who has surpassed Aki in his success; some Samí people he most likely offended; and even the angered gods of theatre. The only ones Aki doesn’t suspect are his trusted friends: his ever-patient agent Hannu and his philosopher friend Tiitus, who remains completely uninterested in Aki’s work and the film industry at large.

Niklas Lindgren

What was the writing process on the show? Was it difficult to balance the humour with drama?
Lindgren: The show is a mix of drama and comedy. Writing solo, I found I naturally leaned towards comedy, and Max was an invaluable sounding board throughout the whole process. She especially helped when the script needed to take a more serious turn, ensuring the humour and drama were balanced, as my instinct as a writer is to approach scenes from a comedic perspective.
When the story headed in a more serious direction, I realised the jokes could undermine the emotional weight of key moments. So I shifted my approach, crafting it primarily as drama with moments of humour woven in, rather than a full comedy. Now when people ask me about the genre of the show, I call it a ‘drama with jokes.’

Malka: Niklas has a very distinct and sharp voice in his writing, and he knew what themes he wanted to explore with a strong thematic core. The curse gives the story a high-concept pitch and a forward-leaning engine. We had a very long development phase that proved beneficial, giving us the rare opportunity to refine the scripts in a more luxurious way.

How was the series developed with Nelonen and Ruutu?
Malka: The key to working with Nelonen was ensuring the casting and marketing angles worked well for them. Once those fell into place, Nelonen was very supportive of the writing process and really conveyed the trust they had in us as creatives. It’s valuable to receive honest feedback and to be given the freedom to adjust as needed – and equally, in some cases, to be comfortable to admit that nothing needs any fixing at all!

Kari Ketonen and Antti Holma are described as Finnish comedy royalty. How did you come to cast them and what did they bring to their roles?
Malka: Niklas had worked with Kari Ketonen before, so the show was tailored with him in mind from the start. I had worked with Antti Holma before and thought he would bring such a great energy to the role of Kari’s agent. Ketonen and Holma are also friends in real life, and that dynamic naturally flows into their on-screen performances. Of course, having excellent scripts helped us attract the cast we wanted.

After being told he is cursed, Aki sets out to right past wrongs

What were your first thoughts about how you would produce the series?
Malka: We aimed to create a cinematic and high-quality series, grounded in realism while embracing the fun of the fictional elements, like the movie sets, posters, trailers and theatre. We wanted to create a show that felt large for local audiences, but with clear international appeal.
From the beginning, we saw this story’s potential to be adapted as a format in other markets. Every country has a star the audience knows and loves, but the actor is always the second from the left on the posters, and never the lead. Casting someone like that in each territory creates an instantly marketable show with a universal theme.

What challenges or obstacles did you face, and how did you overcome them?
Lindgren: From a writing standpoint, the most difficult part was the structure. Every 24-minute episode introduced new characters, all of whom needed to be established in creative and interesting ways. From a directing perspective, the biggest challenge was the same as always: time. However, despite the tight schedule, and thanks to the solid prep work by Max, assistant director Aino Niemi, cinematographer Jarmo Kiuru and production designer Tuomas Kyrö, we made it work. We also had a chance to rehearse with the main cast before filming, which was invaluable for the final result.

Malka: Creating a scripted series takes time, even when you move fast, and our industry is evolving at a faster pace than ever. Initially developed for another platform, the project found a new home and went into production just as our original partner and new broadcaster joined forces – an exciting shift that also brought some timeline adjustments. Now that it’s finally out, we’re super pleased to share it and hope to continue the story of Supporting Actor in another season.

After Dance Brothers and now Supporting Actor, what is Endemol Shine Fiction working on next?
Malka: I would love to make season two of Supporting Actor. In addition to that, I’m working on several high-concept shows with comedic engines, both as TV series and as feature films. What seems to be in common with most is that it’s a cinematic genre mix, like romantic comedy or action comedy. Some are original stories, others are inspired by big IP – it is our ambition to stay diverse and flexible without compromising on quality.

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Blame the parents

Fact File, , ,

Adorable Media’s Richelle Wilder breaks down The Trial, 5’s thought-provoking single drama set in a world where parents are directly legally accountable for their children’s actions, and reveals how it was produced in just four days.

UK broadcaster 5’s The Trial is a thought-provoking drama set in a near-future, dystopian world where parents can face severe legal consequences for the actions of their offspring.

Claire Skinner (Outnumbered) and Ben Miles (The Crown) star as Dione and David Sinclair, whose lives are transformed when their daughter Teah (India Fowler) commits a serious crime.

Dione and David then face a battle against a judicial system that sees them as perpetrators, rather than victims, as they are interrogated about their parenting style, lifestyle and past decisions – and a possible life sentence behind bars.

The single drama, which is produced by Adorable Media for 5, debuts tomorrow. Here, Adorable producer Richelle Wilder tells DQ more about the show, its dystopian setting and how the project went from commission to transmission in just a few months.

Richelle Wilder

What is The Trial?
A newly commissioned single drama written by Mark Burt, adapted from his original play Milligan’s Law. Parents David (Ben Miles) and Dione (Claire Skinner) are thrust into a nightmarish legal battle when their teenage daughter, Teah (India Fowler), commits a serious crime. Under a radical new UK law, parents are no longer just bystanders in their children’s actions. They are directly accountable. David and Dione Sinclair face relentless interrogation as every aspect of their parenting style is scrutinised, from their first meeting and sexual history to their lifestyle and child-rearing choices. If found guilty, they face life behind bars.

The Trial has been commissioned as part of a limited ‘Law & Order in the UK’ season. It is also the first single drama forming part of 5’s larger rebrand launched in March.

The dystopian setting
The Trial is set 10 years in the future, which allows us to construct the storytelling from recognisable roots in contemporary Britain, with creative licence to explore ideas and themes in active discussion right now. In December 2024, former UK prime minister Tony Blair said parents should be made criminally responsible for their children’s crimes. In the US, parents already serve custodial sentences. In the Trial, it is Britain 2035. The state will now decide if you are a good parent or you are a criminal through its newly formed Office of Judicial Inquisition.

An inquisition has no jury. No legal representation is afforded to the defendants. A judicial inquisitor is prosecutor and judge, with the singular authority to condemn and convict. Inquisitor Sarah Willis (Saoirse Monica Jackson) is the ultimate progressive zealot; young, dogmatic and unflinching. The setting has chilling similarities to totalitarian societies of the past but reimagined as a future dystopian Britain.

Ben Miles and Claire Skinner play a pair of parents in The Trial

Themes of relationships, ego, power and betrayal
The Trial takes a provocative look at modern relationships: male-female roles, marriage, partnerships, guilt, responsibilities and betrayal. At its emotional core, this drama explores the disintegration of a marriage, with the audience watching David and Dione’s secrets and lies exposed to one another over 45 minutes as the inquisitor delves into every element of their history together. The drama begins with the Sinclairs as a united couple, but Sarah exposes uncomfortable choices they have made as lovers, partners and parents in a relentless cat-and-mouse game.

Getting the perfect cast for The Trial was crucial. The three main characters are on screen for almost the entire drama, needing to deliver the complexities of characterisation and a wide range of emotional surprise and authenticity in real time. Based on the quality of the script, we were able to attract the talents of Ben Miles, Claire Skinner and Saoirse Monica Jackson, who delivered extraordinary performances.

When their daughter is accused of a crime, they go up against Saoirse Monica Jackson’s inquisitor

The decision to commission a single drama
Paul Testar, our commissioning executive at 5, believed The Trial would make a highly original and thought-provoking single drama to complement the channel’s Law & Order season. The channel required a 12-week turnaround from commission to tape delivery – a production challenge that Adorable Media relished. In six weeks, we adapted the 80-page play into a commercial hour drama, crewed up with highly experienced creatives, found an excellent location and attracted our first-class cast, all while accommodating the two-week Christmas shutdown.

We got excellent support from 5’s editorial, production, business affairs and legal teams. This ensured we finalised all legal and business elements prior to production. We had the excellent writing skills of Mark Burt, delivering five drafts in three weeks. We had a determined director in Michael Samuels (Any Human Heart, Coma) who developed a clear creative vision for the drama, and a top-class production team headed by line producer Hannah Clark, who ensured pre-production ran smoothly, allowing us to hit the ground running in production.

Producing a 45-minute drama in four days
The Trial was shot in four days, with two cameras, in one location. We needed to be no further than 30 miles from our production base, and we found a disused magistrates’ court in Watford, which allowed for the creation of four distinct sets, with minimal moving involved. The director and production designer Ben Smith wanted to create the feel of state overreach, a visual language of absolute power, with dark woods and stylish discomfort, mixed with futuristic digital elements and modern sparseness. The location’s historical architecture provided the ready-made backdrop. The lighting design and camera work of Sergio Delgardo created a strong sense of the outside light closing in on the parents to complement the expectations of the script and the design visuals.

With an experienced team behind the camera across all departments, we were able to move at lightning speed, supported in post by a quick-turnaround edit by Isobel Stephenson and sound mix by Nigel Heath, with online editing by Goldcrest completed within just six weeks.

Filmed in one location, The Trial was shot in just four days

A small indie with big ambitions
Being small, without a decision-making hierarchy or departmental layers, Adorable can be very nimble and reactive. Given The Trial’s commission was dependent on hitting tight deadlines to a lean budget and schedule, we could swing into action instantly. As a small indie without a parent company, we were delighted to step up to the challenge to produce a high-quality, original drama within 12 weeks. Fellow producer Isibeal Ballance and I have combined skillsets that cover every aspect of the production process – from script development and legal affairs to production management – and have recent experience in producing programmes with similar challenges. We already know where the pitfalls might occur and how to circumnavigate them, and the schedule had no extra time for error, delays or overspend. It is ambitious to produce high-quality drama in the UK within the timeframe needed, but The Trial shows its achievable if the necessary production elements are in place.

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On a slippery soap

The Writers Room,

Lisa Holdsworth, a writer, producer and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain regional representative for Yorkshire, writes for DQ about the importance of continuing drama on television and why the falling number of soap writing opportunities is bad news for the drama industry as a whole.

Lisa Holdsworth

It’s been a tough few years for soap writers. It started with the shocking cancellation of Holby City by the BBC in 2021 – and it seems there has only been bad news since then, with the BBC also axing Doctors and River City.

Casualty, Pobol y Cwm and Hollyoaks have all seen a reduction in their weekly episodes, resulting in a significant loss of work for writers, cast and crew, while ITV has announced that both Coronation Street and Emmerdale will be reducing their episodes from 2026, with similar cuts to their writing teams. Only EastEnders (pictured above) seems unscathed, but the fluctuating viewing figures must be making those working at Elstree nervous.

Every time a soap has been axed or has reduced its writing team, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) has been there to support the writers. And as a representative of the WGGB, I have sat in too many Zoom meetings watching those writers try to process losing their livelihoods with little notice. Reactions range from understandable anger to deep distress – while those spared the axe mourn the loss of colleagues whom they have often worked with for years.

Only someone who has been to a soap story conference can understand the trust and comradeship that typifies a great writing team. During your time writing on a soap, you will find yourself exchanging deeply personal life stories in pursuit of new storylines, because the conference table is a safe place where confidences are kept and there is no judgement, so long as it’s a good story.

There’s also a degree of friendly competition. Believe me, there’s nothing as invigorating as seeing the whole story team lean forward because you’ve just pitched something really juicy – or as humbling as pitching to nothing but tumbleweed. So breaking up those well-established teams feels personal.

Holby City’s cancellation by the BBC in 2021 came as a shock

During this period of upheaval on the soaps, the WGGB has repeatedly argued that the producers and executives should offer the outgoing writers opportunities on the broadcasters’ other shows. The answer has been some half-hearted promises, networking events and the “opportunity” to write shadow scripts on schemes that result in frustration but not script commissions.

It is hard to express how insulting and patronising this response has been. After all, these writers are not apprentices who have come to the end of their training; they are experienced TV dramatists who have been writing some of the UK’s most loved shows for years – tried and tested writers with many, many TV hours on their CVs. As the meme goes, they have a very particular set of skills they have acquired over a long career.

Soap writers need an extraordinary deftness to structure compelling episodes around multiple storylines, with tones veering from the deeply emotional to the farcically comedic; a sharp ear for dialogue, so that each character in the huge cast has a unique and consistent voice; inventiveness paired with pragmatism, as episodes are subject to last-minute changes due to budgetary and scheduling constraints; and the thickest of skins, as there’s no time for gentle script edits with notes coming from every direction while you are turning over drafts to tight deadlines. Soap writers have to call on those skills week after week, juggling multiple episodes.

Isn’t that everything commissioners and producers should be looking for in a writer? After all, some of our best dramatists got their start on the soaps, including Sarah Phelps, Jimmy McGovern, Sally Wainwright, Tony Jordan, Kay Mellor and Frank Cottrell Boyce. The beloved Russell T Davies credits his love of Crossroads for his career. And while I’m not in the same league as those stars, I owe my 25 years of TV writing to the steep learning curve I experienced as part of the Emmerdale writing team.

Scottish soap River City

So why do these experienced professionals feel like they have been consigned to the scrapheap? I had a heartbreaking exchange with a writer (WGGB member) who had fallen victim to the cuts about the “stigma” of being a soap writer and how their multiple hours of television wouldn’t be considered valuable experience by development executives. I wish I could have reassured that writer, but it really does seem our industry has collectively turned its nose up at soap writers in favour of a handful of overworked auteurs.

While we are haemorrhaging veterans, we are also limiting opportunities for the fresh meat our industry needs. The soaps have historically been the incubators of TV talent for the UK industry across all the departments. And while I really don’t wish to be latest doom-monger sounding the death knell for UK TV drama, I do find it hard to imagine how the industry will attract the bright, fresh, diverse voices that the execs claim to value without the soaps.

It feels like the industry as a whole is neglecting lower- and mid-budget television in pursuit of the accolades and clout that comes with producing high-end television, even though big budgets and BAFTA nominations do not guarantee big audiences. It certainly won’t ensure the future of our industry. Without the entry-level opportunities, the financial stability of a regular gig and the hothouse on-the-job training of the soaps, we will lose existing talent without replacing it with new talent. It almost goes without saying that this will have a catastrophic effect on the already woeful diversity in our industry as the ladder is pulled up once and for all.

So I urge producers, broadcasters and showrunners staffing up their next writers room to take advantage of the unparalleled talent and experience that is out there. And not to dismiss someone as just a soap writer.

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Finding Sanctuary

The Director’s Chair, , , , , ,

Spanish sci-fi series Santuario (Sanctuary) deals with contemporary themes in a futuristic world where pregnant women shelter from the planet’s pollution. Director and exec producer Rodrigo Ruiz Gallardón tells DQ how it was made.

Set in a futuristic world where pregnant women are sheltered from the Earth’s pollution in massive protective domes, Santuario (Sanctuary) deals with no end of contemporary themes, from the dangers of technological advancement to climate change.

It’s in one Sanctuary that viewers meet Pilar (Lucía Guerro), who arrives three months pregnant and soon finds herself coming to terms with the strange environment built to protect her and other expectant mothers following a global climate disaster. Meanwhile, AI engineer Valle (Aura Garrido) has very clear values, but when she’s offered a job at the Sanctuary, she must reconsider her ideals.

An Atresmedia TV production in collaboration with Pokeepsie Films for Spanish streamer Atresplayer, the show is based on the podcast of the same name from writers Manuel Bartual and Carmen Pacheco. Montse García and Rodrigo Ruiz-Gallardón are the executive producers, with Álex de la Iglesia and Carolina Bang producing. Atresmedia Sales is the distributor.

Here, Ruiz-Fallardón, who also directs with Zoe Berriatúa, tells DQ more about the series after it was among 17 shows selected for the Berlinale Series Market Selects at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year.

Rodrigo Ruiz-Gallardón

Introduce us to the series.
Sanctuary is a science-fiction series consisting of eight episodes that address current issues such as the dangers of technological advancement, climate change and fertility problems.

What kind of world do we see in the show, and who do we meet?
The first episodes take place in the Sanctuary, a place where pregnant women go to carry their pregnancies to term. The outside world is so polluted that all pregnancies end in miscarriage. These Sanctuaries are designed like luxury spas, providing pregnant women with every imaginable comfort. However, despite all the care and attention, we sense an artificial and oppressive atmosphere from the start through our protagonist, Pilar.

Pilar is our Alice, and the Sanctuary is Wonderland. She is new to the Sanctuary. We make her an observer to introduce the rules of this world. From the very beginning, she feels uneasy – she knows something is not what it seems. Valle, the woman in charge of the wellbeing of the pregnant women, is hiding something.

As the series unfolds, our protagonists will join forces to escape the Sanctuary and uncover the truth about the outside world.

What can you tell us about how the story unfolds?
The story is not told in a linear timeline but through the perspectives of its characters. In the first two episodes, we enter this world through Pilar’s eyes, with her perception of reality limited by how she interprets it. However, starting in episode three, the narrative shifts to Valle’s perspective, taking us back in time to uncover the truth about this world – one we previously saw in a subjective and highly distorted way. Both protagonists exist in the same time and space, yet their realities are completely different.

Sanctuary is set in a future where pregnant women are protected from the polluted outside world

How did you join the project?
The series is based on a podcast of the same name. I joined the project when we began adapting the podcast into an audiovisual format. The script development and production design had to go hand in hand to create a project that was both coherent and aligned with the production budget.

What was your interest in the story and the world of the show?
Having the opportunity to create a world with its own rules and using it to fictionalise real-world issues from an entirely imagined place.

What were your initial ideas about how you would film the series?
The challenge was to create a world that felt clean, pleasant and comfortable, yet at the same time artificial, overwhelming and oppressive. Everyone is so happy but something feels off. It’s like living inside Instagram – everything is perfect, but none of it feels real. ‘I don’t belong, and all I want to do is vomit just to stain the pristine white walls around me.’

How did you work with the writers and producers to develop the show?
The collaboration was very close. The writers created the world in the podcast and faced the challenge of translating it into the audiovisual medium. As the executive producer of the series, my role was a mix between ‘budget censor’ and ‘enabler.’

The show has been adapted from the podcast by Manuel Bartual and Carmen Pacheco

Is there a way you like to work with actors?
Yes, I like to give them a lot of freedom – to let them take ownership of their characters, to challenge me if they feel a line shouldn’t be said or a gesture shouldn’t be made. I want them to be the ones shaping their roles. I believe that throughout the entire journey with them, the most important decision a director makes regarding an actor is the moment they are cast. After that, the character should be led by the actor, not the director.

How did you decide to use the camera? Did you lean into the genre in any way?
To create that sense of artificiality, I wanted the camera movements to feel counterintuitive. We’re all accustomed to a certain audiovisual language, and unconsciously we’ve established rules that satisfy us when followed or frustrate us when broken. My idea was to tap into that unconscious frustration.

Where was the series filmed and how did you use locations on screen?
Architecture plays a fundamental role in the series. I wanted it to be another narrative element. To achieve this, we scouted buildings and exteriors across Spain that fit the script’s needs. The Sanctuary alone was filmed in more than seven different locations, and seamlessly blending these spaces together was one of the series’ biggest challenges.

What challenges did you face in production?
Time. The shooting schedule was incredibly tight, and we had to film a high volume of scenes each day. To maximise our time on set, we carried out meticulous preparation, which allowed the team to work like a well-oiled machine.

Why might the series appeal to international viewers?
One of the advantages of science fiction is that it is universal. With its own set of rules, it connects with different cultures. The viewer doesn’t identify with the project because they are familiar with the setting or the characters’ behaviour, but because they empathise with the problems the characters face.

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Series to Watch: May 2025

Ones to Watch, , , , , , , , ,

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new series to watch this May, from a Judy Blume adaptation and a British crime thriller to a tense friendship drama and the next projects from Lost’s JJ Abrams and Succession creator Jesse Armstrong.

The Four Seasons
From: US
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producers: Little Stranger, Universal Television
Starring: Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Marco Calvani, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Erika Henningsen and Kerry Kenny-Silver
Launch date: May 1
In this adaptation of Alan Alda’s 1981 romantic comedy film, six old friends head for a relaxing weekend away, only to learn that one couple in the group are about to split up. Over the course of a year, the three couples – Kate (Fey) and Jack (Forte), Nick (Carell) and Anne (Kenney-Silver), and Danny (Domingo) and Claude (Calvani) – gather for four vacations as this shake-up affects their dynamics, sending issues old and new bubbling to the surface.
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Poker Face S2
From: US
Original broadcaster: Peacock
Producers: T-Street, MRC and Animal Pictures
Starring: Natasha Lyonne, with guest stars including Cynthia Erivo, John Mulaney, Katie Holmes
Launch date: May 8
Following its debut in 2023, Lyonne and Rian Johnson’s case-of-the-week procedural catches up with Charlie (Lyonne), who has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying. She hits the road in her Plymouth Barracuda and, with every stop, encounters a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve.
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Forever
From: US
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Story27 Productions
Starring: Lovie Simone, Michael Cooper Jr, Wood Harris, Barry Shabaka Henley, Xosha Roquemore, Niles Fitch and Karen Pittman
Launch date: May 8
Judy Blume’s groundbreaking 1975 novel, Forever, is reimagined for a new generation by Mara Brock Akil (Being Mary Jane). It’s an epic love story of black teens Keisha (Simone) and Justin (Cooper Jr) as they explore romance and their identities through the awkward journey of being each other’s firsts, set in 2018 LA.
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Murderbot
From: US
Original broadcaster: Apple TV+
Producer: Apple Studios
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian and Sabrina Wu
Launch date: May 16
Based on Martha Wells’s book series, Murderbot is a sci-fi thriller/comedy about a self-hacking security construct who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable clients. Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.
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Duster
From: US
Original broadcaster: Max
Producers: Warner Bros Television and Tinker Toy Productions
Starring: Josh Holloway, Rachel Hilson, Keith David, Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez and Benjamin Charles Watson
Launch date: May 16
From JJ Abrams (Lost) and showrunner LaToya Morgan comes this drama set in the US Southwest in the 1970s. The story explores the life of a gutsy getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate that goes from dangerous to wildly, stupidly dangerous when a tenacious young agent comes into town hellbent on taking the criminals down.
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Code of Silence
From: UK
Original broadcaster: ITV
Producer: Mammoth Screen
Starring: Rose Ayling-Ellis, Kieron Moore, Charlotte Ritchie and Andrew Buchan
Launch date: May 18 (ITV)
This six-part crime thriller follows Alison Brooks (Ayling-Ellis), a smart and determined deaf woman. Having spent years working in a police canteen and secretly observing conversations, her life takes an unexpected turn when her exceptional lip-reading skills catch the attention of DS Ashleigh Francis (Ritchie) and DI James Marsh (Buchan). Recruited for a covert operation, Alison is tasked with surveilling a dangerous gang as they plot a high-stakes heist, thrusting her into a world of crime, deception and risk like never before. But when she crosses paths with Liam Barlow (Moore), the gang’s newest recruit, an unexpected and dangerous bond forms between them, one that threatens to expose her true identity while pulling her further into the criminal world.

Little Disasters
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Paramount+
Producer: Roughcut Television
Starring: Diane Kruger, Jo Joyner, Shelley Conn and Emily Taaffe
Launch date: May 22
A “tense and compelling” six-part drama focusing on a decade-long friendship between Jess (Kruger), Liz (Joyner), Mel (Taaffe) and Charlotte (Conn), four expectant mothers who were thrown together with little in common apart from their due dates. When Jess takes her baby daughter to hospital with a head injury she can’t explain, her close friend and on-duty A&E doctor Liz must make the excruciating decision of whether to call social services on her longtime friend – a decision that sets in motion a chain of events that show how one moment can fracture and nearly destroy entire families and friendships.

Sirens
From: US
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Lucky Chap
Starring: Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy, Mily Alcock, Kevin Bacon, Glenn Howerton, Felix Solis and Bill Camp
Launch date: May 22
Based on creator Molly Smith Metzler’s play Elemeno Pea, this dark comedy is set over the course of one explosive weekend at an exclusive beach estate. Devon (Fahy) thinks her sister Simone (Alcock) has a really creepy relationship with her new boss, the enigmatic socialite Michaela Kell (Moore, pictured top). Michaela’s cultish life of luxury is like a drug to Simone, and Devon has decided it’s time for an intervention, but she has no idea what a formidable opponent Michaela will be.

The Better Sister
From: US
Original broadcaster: Prime Video
Producers: Tomorrow Studios and Amazon MGM Studios
Starring: Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Biel, Corey Stoll, Kim Dickens, Maxwell Acee Donovan, Bobby Naderi, Gabriel Sloyer, Gloria Reuben, Matthew Modine and Lorraine Toussaint
Launch date: May 29
Based on the novel by Alafair Burke, The Better Sister is an eight-episode thriller about the terrible things that drive sisters apart and ultimately bring them back together. Chloe (Biel), a high-profile media executive, lives a picturesque life with her handsome lawyer husband Adam (Stoll) and teenage son Ethan (Donovan) by her side, while her estranged sister Nicky (Banks) struggles to make ends meet and stay clean. When Adam is brutally murdered, the prime suspect sends shockwaves through the family, reuniting the two sisters as they try to untangle a complicated family history to discover the truth behind his death.

Mountainhead
From: US
Original broadcaster: HBO
Starring: Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith and Ramy Youssef
Launch date: May 31
Written, directed and executive produced by Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, this HBO film marks Armstrong’s directorial debut. The story follows a group of billionaire friends who get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis.

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Fact File: Cold Haven

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Andri Ómarsson from Icelandic production company Glassriver and Pedro Lopes from Portugal’s SPI discuss six key locations from this crime thriller, which unfolds across both countries.

Set between Iceland and Portugal, Cold Haven is an eight-part crime thriller exploring the immigration experience. The story follows Icelandic detective Soffia as she attempts to solve a murder within the Portuguese community on Iceland’s Westman Islands.

Produced by Iceland’s Glassriver and Portugal’s SPI for Icelandic streamer Síminn and Portuguese public broadcaster RTP, the series is predominantly set on the Icelandic archipelago of Vestmannaeyjar, as well as its capital Reykjavík and Portugal capital Lisbon.

Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir stars as Soffia, with the ensemble cast featuring Ivo Canelas, Maria João Bastos, Catarina Rebelo and Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson.

Here, executive producer Andri Ómarsson, CEO of Glassriver, talks us through the Icelandic locations, while fellow EP Pedro Lopes, content director at SPI, discusses the Portuguese places in the show.

ICELAND

Hafnarfjörður
Although Cold Haven evokes the rugged isolation of the Westman Islands, much of the primary filming took place in the town of Hafnarfjörður, situated about 10km south of the capital, Reykjavík.
Here we discovered two houses positioned directly across from one another, which became central to the show’s visual storytelling, allowing for a seamless interplay between interior and exterior scenes. This setup reinforced the show’s themes of proximity and entrapment, where characters are constantly within sight yet emotionally distant, mirroring the tension that defines the narrative.
The town’s deep ties to folklore subtly reference a key theme throughout Cold Haven: the unknown. From a logistical standpoint, the ability to shoot both interior and exterior scenes in the same location (thanks to the kind Icelanders who answered the door to us) allowed for continuity and made these two houses a central part of our story.

Stórhöfði
Situated at the southern tip of Heimaey, Stórhöfði is known as the windiest place in Europe, which makes it one of the most challenging production locations. Despite this, the script calls for a particular location for a character who lives outside town and is an outsider in the community. Therefore, finding the right setting was crucial.
We discovered Stórhöfði, a weather station that perfectly fit our needs. It offers one of the most breathtaking views in the country and stands isolated on a high hill, making it impossible to approach unnoticed. It’s safe to say Stórhöfði lived up to its reputation – we faced stormy conditions the entirety of our time there, even when the weather was calm elsewhere on the island.
Stórhöfði’s relentless gales and ever-present mist contributed to the bleak and dangerous atmosphere of the series and the iconic brooding Nordic noir aesthetic. Its desolate cliffs and rugged lava fields, overlooking the vast sea, heighten the sense of vulnerability, making the setting feel both hauntingly beautiful and inherently hostile.

Westman Islands
Often described as a miniature version of Iceland (you can travel across the main island in 10 minutes or less), Vestmannaeyjar (the Westman Islands) was a priority location for Cold Haven, with most of the action taking place in a small town.
What makes the islands unique is their location just south of Iceland. As a volcanic archipelago, whose largest and most populated island is Heimaey, its landscape stands apart from the rest of Iceland’s natural scenery. Currently, the only way to travel to and from the islands is by boat, as there is an airport but no scheduled flights. This setting complements and contributes to the show’s themes of isolation, mystery and survival. The dramatic volcanic terrain, black sand beaches and jagged rock formations create an eerie and unforgiving backdrop that mirrors the tension between the characters.
The islands foster a close-knit community where everyone knows each other – and just about everything about one another. Our main challenges during the shoot were largely weather-related. In poor conditions, the journey to the islands takes three hours by boat, whereas in good weather, it’s only a 40-minute trip. This made any last-minute schedule changes particularly difficult.

PORTUGAL

Infante Santo Avenue
This series is very cinematic. We’ve given great importance to all the departments – art direction, photography direction, costume design – and I’m passionate about architecture, so we talked a lot about where we’d like to shoot in Lisbon. I’ve wanted to film on Infante Santo Avenue for a long time; I’m fascinated by the modernity of its buildings built in the 1950s, which contrast with the old Lisbon that is always the ‘postcard’ image of the city.
Infante Santo is made up of a group of five residential blocks on pilotis (stilts), isolated from each other, and is very influenced by the architecture of Le Corbusier. It’s a good example of the sophisticated, upper-middle-class family at the centre of the show, and contrasts with the harsh life they’ll find on the Westman Islands.
Infante Santo’s famous staircase has a panel by Carlos Botelho, from the same period, called ‘colourful city,’ which serves very well as a contrasting backdrop for the scene of a mother and daughter rushing out of their house, in a planned escape that will take them to Iceland, fleeing a situation of domestic violence.

Mouraria
Although I’m an executive producer on this series, my screenwriting background drives the way I read a script, thinking about the purpose of each scene, on the construction of the character, or what will allow the action to move forward, and, above all, making me ask myself about the emotional impact each scene will have on the audience. The directors did great work with the actors, building relationships between them, but also in their relationship with the camera.
Lisbon is known as the city of seven hills. The oldest areas, such as the Mouraria neighbourhood, which owes its name to the Muslim population that concentrated there in the 12th century, are more than 900 years old, so the buildings are an amalgamation of different times, with narrow, labyrinthine streets, but with stunning views over the city and the river.
Today, it is an area inhabited almost exclusively by tourists, in a very current contrast to the transformation taking place in the city. This is a place of positive memories for our main character, of moments of adventure and complicity. It’s an old, familiar, comfortable and sunny place, which will contrast with the new reality she will find outside her country.

Guincho
The series travels through two different countries, so it’s important the locations make it clear whether you’re in Iceland or Portugal. In addition to this, particular attention was paid to ensuring the locations served the dramaturgy, sometimes emphasising the tension between characters and sometimes acting as a contrast, with an idyllic landscape as the backdrop to a violent scene, for example – like the scenes that we shot in Guincho.
This area is part of the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, which gives it a wild atmosphere, without buildings and with mountains in the background. The beach has a long stretch of sand, with dunes, and you must take a long road along the cliffs to get there. The environment is inhospitable but beautiful. It’s harsh and violent, with rough seas and strong winds. We can have a fantastic sunny day and, in one second, the weather changes radically.
On the day we were shooting, we went through moments of bright sunshine and heavy rain. That’s also what the scene we shot is about – a moment of family happiness that quickly descends into violence.

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The sounds of This City

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Set in Liverpool, the city that gave the world The Beatles, BBC crime drama This City is Ours makes music an integral part of its storytelling. Lead director and exec producer Saul Dibb picks out some key scenes from the series where music drives the story emotionally and rhythmically.

From writer Stephen Butchard (Shardlake) and lead director Saul Dibb (The Sixth Commandment), BBC crime drama This City is Ours tells the story of Michael, a man who has been involved in organised crime for all of his adult life, working for his friend and gang leader Ronnie.

When Ronnie begins to hint at retirement, Michael too begins to imagine another life and a future with his girlfriend Diana. With Ronnie’s son Jamie set on following in his father’s footsteps, Michael and Jamie battle for control of the gang – but Michael’s biggest battle will be to save the woman he loves and the child he has always wanted.

Produced by Left Bank Pictures for BBC One and distributed by Sony Pictures Television, the series stars Sean Bean, James Nelson-Joyce, Hannah Onslow, Jack McMullen and Julie Graham.

Here, director Dibb, who is represented by Casarotto Ramsay, reflects on the role of music in the series and picks out some key scenes that contribute to helping this crime drama dance to a different beat.

Dibb: Being set in Liverpool, it’s perhaps no surprise that music plays such a vital role in This City is Ours. But from the very beginning, it was more than just a backdrop. We wanted it to help define the DNA of the series, and to use the kind of iconic commercial tracks that are usually the domain of deep-pocketed streamers. We believed the story – and, more importantly, the characters – deserved it.

Stephen Butchard’s first drafts of the script already had specific songs written into them that acted as extensions of character, story and place. Ronnie, the head of our crime family, has a deeply sentimental attachment to the classic crooners his father loved, like Matt Monro, Perry Como and Frank Sinatra.

There’s a scene at a christening where Frankie Valli and Bobby Darin play – it’s not just to set the mood; it tells you about the characters in that room and the world they inhabit. And then the whole gang line-dance to House of Bamboo by Andy Williams – a chance to show them bonding before it all goes wrong – which has taken on a brilliant and surreal life of its own on social media since the show launched.

Those classic tracks helped build Ronnie’s identity as a man out of time. The world around him is changing fast, so I also wanted to create a musical counterpoint, and brought in my long-time music supervisor, Mark Kirby, to help reflect the more varied and modern environment the rest of the characters lived in.

Saul Dibb (right) with star Sean Bean filming This City is Ours

One example is a scene in their Spanish villa where the gang goes wild after a jubilant night out. We wanted something euphoric, that felt authentic to the city and its people. After many hours of listening, we landed on Robyn S’s Show Me Love – a 90s house classic that resonates deeply with Liverpool audiences (albeit not so much with Ronnie).

Another is a scene where Ronnie’s second-in-command, Michael, raids a chophouse – where a contemporary grime tune plays at full blast as a couple of kids divide up a kilo of cocaine.

Throughout, we had a rule: all of the commercial music had to come out of a scene and with no needle drops. It had to feel organic, rooted in the world of the show. But we also wanted to be creative with how we used it and find ways for music to drive scenes emotionally and rhythmically in unusual ways.

Nowhere is that more evident than in one extended sequence where Michael is tasked to kill someone while out on their morning run – which became one of my favourite parts of the show. In it, we move between different characters and locations: a gym, the runner on the street, someone driving a car. Each of them is listening to something different, but all of it is at the same tempo and seamlessly mixed into Rael Jones’s underlying 160bpm score.

The idea was that Rael’s insistent and unwavering beat would give the sequence a relentless, hypnotic pulse, almost like a DJ set where everything bleeds perfectly into the next. Happy house slides into The Kinks, which rolls into drum and bass, and then back again – all timed with meticulous precision.

Dibb was keen to ensure the music felt ‘organic, rooted in the world of the show’

To make it work, Stephen Walters, who plays the marked man, Davy Crawford, ran the entire sequence with a 160bpm click track in his ear so each of his footsteps would land perfectly in time with the pre-composed cue. Editor Sarah Peczek deserves a huge amount of credit here, finding rhythm in the smallest of places as she cut it together so every other sound follows that same logic: from the beeps of a car door opening to mobile phone alerts, to the click of a car indicator to Ronnie’s ticking clock back at his house.

When the hit is abruptly called off, we cut to a close-up on Michael’s face and hear his heartbeat – still at 160 bpm – before slowing gradually as the adrenaline wears off. The whole thing is five minutes long while almost nothing is spoken but hopefully everything is felt.

Another musical moment I love is when Ronnie returns from killing a friend to find his son Jamie by the pool, blasting Tiësto’s Adagio for Strings – a massive trance track. It’s completely jarring for Ronnie, his world is slipping out of his control, the old order giving way to something brash and new – not unlike like Jamie himself.

A little while later, everyone is lying awkwardly around the pool and not mentioning the elephant in the room. Then the dead man’s phone rings. It’s his wife calling, with his ringtone playing, Wild Thing. It’s macabre, funny and also deeply uncomfortable. Everyone freezes until it goes away. But after a moment it rings again. Someone reaches over and flips it to silent. Then, one by one, everyone checks their own phones and switches them off too. Followed by complete silence.

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Worth watching

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The stories of Swedish soldiers operating during the Bosnian War are dramatised in six-part drama A Life’s Worth. Writer Mona Masri and director Ahmed Abdullahi speak to DQ about creating this suspenseful and hopeful military series that finds its characters walking the line between duty and humanity.

Inspired by the first Swedish UN battalion to serve in the Bosnian War of 1992-1995, A Life’s Worth follows four young soldiers on their first overseas operation as they are confronted by the tangled and bloody conflict in the Balkans.

For Forss, Babic, Strand and Kilpinen, the mission proves impossible by peaceful means alone, while their commander, Andreasson, is torn between the desire to intervene and the duty to follow orders.

Over six episodes, the series blends suspense and emotion with life-or-death stakes and the stories of characters affected by the conflict as the Swedish soldiers navigate a treacherous line between duty and humanity.

A Life’s Worth centres on four young Swedish soldiers fighting in the Bosnian War

As well as real events, the story is based on Magnus Ernström’s novel A Half Year, an Entire Life. Produced by YellowBird for Scandinavian streamer Viaplay and France’s Arte, it is directed by Ahmed Abdullahi (Top Dog) and written by Mona Masri (Snabba Cash) and Oliver Dixon (Paradis City).

The ensemble cast includes Johan Rheborg (Sunny Side), Edvin Ryding (Young Royals), Maxwell Cunningham (One More Time), Erik Enge (Tigers) and Toni Prince (Drugdealer).

Distributed by Viaplay Content Distribution, which has already sold the series to EITB in Spain and Vodafone in Greece, the show had its world premiere at French television festival Series Mania last month and will debut on Arte on June 19. Filming took place in Slovakia and Lithuania.

Here, Abdullahi and Masri join producer Maida Krak to tell DQ about bringing this story to the screen, why it’s not just a war drama and how the limited series might continue in the future.

Mona Masri

What are the origins of the series?
Masri: It started with a book, then it evolved into something bigger than the book. The book gave us a lot of situations from the soldiers’ lives and what they knew and what they didn’t know about the conflict before going there, details about living in the camp, stuff like that.

Why was a limited series the right format for this story?
Masri: Everyone wanted to make a series with a big scope – that’s something I really like. And to tell the story of some Swedish soldiers going to this war in Bosnia, not really knowing what the conflict was about, and also then integrating the local community into the Swedish soldiers’ story in a natural way, and just adding layers. That’s the beauty of TV, that we can do that. In a feature film, it would be much more streamlined. You would have maybe one protagonist wanting one thing. We just wanted to create a real TV series.

How did you bring together the different elements of the story?
Masri: The conflict was mainly about three sides, the Croats, the Serbs and the Bosnians. So it was important for Oliver and I to have one character from each side [alongside the Swedish soldiers], because we wanted to show from a human perspective how this conflict could affect people, and how they were neighbours and then they started turning on each other. It was clear that we wanted three characters from the local civilian side.

We could have done things simpler. In hindsight, I can think about that. But on the other hand, that’s also why I think this is a series that’s very special to me, that we dared to make it a little bit more layered and rich.

The actors playing the soldiers took part in a week-long military camp

Was it a difficult series to pitch?
Krak: [We pitched it] during a different time in Sweden, when we had a booming [TV] market. But it was difficult even during that period, and [it was hard to find] a way to finance it. But in the end, we did, and a lot has changed to where the market is today.

Abdullahi: It’s an extremely daring project. In Sweden, there’s never been any attempt to do this kind of war series. So we were walking on untouched territory, at least when it comes to Sweden and how people perceive those kinds of movies or series. I can imagine it was a really long uphill battle [to complete financing].

Krak: The TV world has changed and [the project] started in an era with a lot of confidence, more money. I think today it would be very difficult because it’s a pretty expensive show.

Ahmed Abdullahi

Ahmed, what was your interest in the scripts or the story?
Abdullahi: I came from a war-torn country [Somalia], but also I did Swedish military service, so I knew both worlds. I’ve seen it. And also, when I came to Sweden, I had a lot of friends from Bosnia so I’ve heard those stories and I felt like I was close to the subject. Of course, once I read the script and when I talked to the producers, I knew how I wanted to approach this – how to tell this story in a more nuanced way, but also [how to convey an] aspect of hope within the cinematography.

How did you create the atmosphere of the show?
Abdullahi: One of the things we actually took inspiration from was [the fact that] the real Swedish UN soldiers took a lot of pictures, so we had access to those images. That was one of the main things. We wanted to achieve that look. We’ve also seen several documentary films [on the war]. At the end of the day, we are doing this fantastic, big story with a limited budget, and it started with creative thoughts about how we can tell this story with the limitations we have, which the cinematographer and I really enjoyed.

There’s a big cast. How do you like to work with actors on set?
Abdullahi: After the casting period was over, we sent the Swedish actors to a military camp for a week with a former Swedish major. And even though it was really harsh, it made them bond with each other. They really became friends after that and still hang out with each other to this day.

Masri: They slept in the woods for a week, so they were really hungry. We went on the last day when they got microwave food and they were like, ‘Oh, this is so good!’

Krak: It continued during the whole shoot because there was a hierarchy in how the soldiers [actors] were accommodated. So the young guys were staying in small rooms.

Abdullahi: The colonel had the biggest suite. That continued for a month. After that, we stopped. But once they heard the colonel putting out commands in a military style, they became focused, so it was a lot of fun doing those things with them.
Of course, they had the military training for how to handle weapons and stuff like that. But at the same time, the real soldiers who [fought in the war] weren’t like trained soldiers – they did the Swedish military service and then this opportunity to join the UN came. So we wanted to keep it not like a Navy SEALs kind of story; just regular guys who happen to have guns in their hands.

A Life’s Worth will debut on France’s Arte on June 19

After its premiere at Series Mania, what are you hopes for this show?
Masri: I hope it reaches an audience that is entertained and gets to learn something about this conflict, but mostly that they get attached or relate to the characters. I just hope this is a series that can travel and that it’s well received by the audience. In the end, as a filmmaker, you want people to watch what you do, you want to communicate, and I hope people like the story and the characters.

Abdullahi: One of the things we wanted to portray in the show was that, even though it’s a war drama, there are still real people in there doing daily stuff, so there is a lot of humour in the series, because people still need to get married, people still need to buy bread. So daily active life is in there too. Ultimately, it’s a series with hope in it.

Could A Life’s Worth continue after this season?
Masri: It’s a limited series. I have pitched an idea of making it into an anthology series, because we sent UN soldiers to other conflict areas like Somalia, Lebanon and the Congo. But for now it’s a limited series.

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Dying to live

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Dying for Sex showrunners Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether join executive producer Nikki Boyer to discuss their adaptation of Boyer’s eponymous podcast, which charted her friend’s sexual adventure after learning she had terminal cancer.

When Molly Kochan was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, she decided to leave her unhappy marriage and embark on a series of sexual adventures to help her feel more alive in the face of her incurable illness.

Together with her best friend Nikki Boyer, she then sat down to discuss her journey in the podcast Dying for Sex, where she revealed she wasn’t just fighting breast cancer but was also dealing with some trauma from her past.

Now, the podcast has been adapted for television as a series also called Dying for Sex, which debuted in the US on Hulu and internationally on Disney+ on April 4.

Michelle Williams (Dawson’s Creek, Brokeback Mountain) plays Molly, who, after being diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, decides to leave her husband Steve (Industry’s Jay Duplass) and begins to explore the full breadth and complexity of her sexual desires for the first time in her life, with support from her ‘ride or die’ Nikki (It Ends With Us star Jenny Slate). Rob Delaney, Kelvin Yu, David Rasche, Esco Jouléy and Sissy Spacek also star.

Produced by 20th Television, the eight-part series is written and co-created by Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether, who exec produce alongside Williams and Boyer. Katherine Pope, Kathy Ciric, Hernan Lopez, Jen Sargent, Marshall Lewy  Aaron Hart, Shannon Murphy and Leslye Headland are also among the EPs.

Here, co-showrunners Rosenstock (Only Murders in the Building) and Meriwether (The Dropout) join Boyer to discuss the adaptation process behind the show, how they blended fact and fiction to tell Molly’s story, and what it was like for Boyer to see herself portrayed on screen.

Michelle Williams as Molly in Dying for Sex

What was it about Molly’s life story and her experience with her illness that made you want to team up and turn it into a TV series?
Meriwether: The podcast was just so, so gripping and funny and moving and just an incredible mix of tones. I felt like I’d never heard a story like this being told before in this way. It seemed to take on the biggest issues that human beings face and do it in such a heartwarming, loving way, and it’s just so human and honest. I remember listening to the podcast and immediately jumping on it, wanting to do it. I’d known Kim since my early 20s – we’ve been friends since our early 20s and we worked on New Girl together – so I immediately thought of her and I sent it to her in the middle of Covid.

Rosenstock: I was like, ‘I don’t want to listen to a story about a woman dying of cancer. It sounds sad.’ Liz was like, ‘But she’s also having a sexual awakening. It’s crazy.’ I was like, ‘Oh, yes, I’ll listen.’ For both of us, another huge thing is the tension [from the fact that] it’s a story about someone who is dying and healing at the same time. The juxtaposition between those two things felt so fresh. I don’t think I’d seen or heard anything like that before.

The show is a mixture of tones and genres, from comedy to emotional drama. How did you seek to get that balance right while also making it entertaining?
Meriwether: We’re comedy writers, and we had told them [20th Television] we were making a comedy, so we were on the hook for that. It was actually helpful, our background writing sitcoms, because we looked at each episode structurally and asked, ‘How do we find the funny story in the midst of all of this?’ There were definitely episodes later on where we gave up on that, or it was like, ‘OK, that’s not gonna happen for this moment in her life.’ But early on, it was helpful to approach it from a comedic place, just because it helped us move through some of those darker themes and bring the audience in, in a fun way.
The focus for us was not so much about genre in terms of ‘We need a joke every three lines,’ but it was like, how do we dig into the moments and allow them to be as human as possible, which means sometimes tragic, sometimes so silly, awkward, and sometimes all at once? We were just trying to rely on the fact that this was a real woman, these are real people. How would it have actually felt? And less on writing the perfect joke, which I love. We do love that kind of writing, but this felt like it was much more about the humanity of the characters.

The show is based on the podcast by Nikki Boyer, who is played on screen by Jenny Slate

As the series is based on Molly’s real experiences, how did you find the line between the truth and the creative licence you bring to the show as TV writers?
Rosenstock: One of the amazing things was that Nikki, who made the podcast, was an executive producer on this show. [She] made herself so available to us throughout the process, but also gave us tremendous freedom from the jump, in terms of allowing us to adapt this and use the podcast as source material and as a jumping-off point, and not needing to feel like we’re making a biopic about Molly’s life and to really let us find what story we thought was the most exciting one to tell for television, for a visual story. That was a huge gift. But then when we were like, ‘We need detail,’ she had this experience and she was willing to really go into some painful memories and tell us how it felt. A really cool part of this process was getting to work with Nikki.

Nikki, how are you reflecting on making the TV adaptation of your podcast and dramatising Molly’s story?
Boyer: I am bursting at the seams, filled with so much gratitude and love. But to be honest, I just went into the bathroom and had a moment to cry for like two minutes. And then I pull my shit together and I get back on. It’s the dance of gratitude and grief, and you can’t have really one without the other. You can’t have that deep love that you have for your friend without the same amount of grief. They measure equally almost.

How did you want to shape the story in your role as an executive producer?
Boyer: Molly and I did the Wondery podcast, and it was such a gift to be able to do that with the team at Wondery. We created this really well-rounded, beautiful thing. So when we went on to meet with showrunners, to potentially work with them, immediately Liz Meriwether walked in the room and it just felt like, ‘Oh, this feels like the safe space.’ She just gets it – she just got Molly and she got the story and the idea.
When she paired up with Kim Rosenstock a little bit later, I didn’t really know honestly where I was gonna fit in. Then they just kind of kicked the doors open and said, ‘We wanna talk to you as much as we can.’ I think they were a little nervous, to honest, that it was gonna be hard for me. And I’m like, ‘Well, I cry all the time, so we just have to get over that.’ But it was really healing for me to be a part of it. Once they understood that, we just dove right in together, so I got to be in the writer’s room, on the phone, creating timelines, just really digging in so deeply and that’s when I really knew I was in great hands because they were really honouring the parts that were true and knew what they were going to embellish and create upon that, and I felt really good about that. I still do watching it back. It feels to me just perfect

Jay Duplass plays Molly’s husband, Steve, whom she decides to leave after her cancer diagnosis

What were the things that you wanted to see from the TV show, the parts of Molly or the stories that you shared that you thought have to be included, and where was that creative licence?
Boyer: What I loved is that they really captured the stillness of Molly and also the spontaneity of Molly. She was a really thoughtful person. It just wasn’t about, ‘Let’s have sex, let’s be hot, let’s send a hot picture.’ It was really thoughtful. And her exploration of kinks and fetishes, although I was slightly judgy about some of them, she was just so open. I didn’t want that to get lost, but I knew immediately with Kim and Liz that it wasn’t going to get lost because there wasn’t that type of judgement. Liz said she wants this show to make the men clutch their pearls. That balance they created between being really sexy, but also really vulnerable and tender and also hilariously funny, was just this perfect recipe.
There were some things that they shifted and changed the timeline, like my relationship with my boyfriend and where we were at the time of Molly’s illness. But honestly, I loved the liberties that they took. Their version of this story, I love it.

You’re also in it. What was that like for you, seeing someone play you and following that journey?
Boyer: I loved it. At first I was a little like, ‘Oh, this will be fun. Let’s see what we’ve got.’ Then when I heard that Jenny Slate was playing the role, I remember just kind of breathing a sigh of relief because there’s such a warmth and a humour to her and I’m like, ‘Oh, she’ll be way funnier than I am, so that’s a bonus.’ But she is such a good actress, so present in her body and ready to take risks and have fun and try things on set, so when I saw her, I thought, ‘Yeah, that feels right. That feels like the perfect Nikki to Michelle’s Molly.’ That matched up really well.

What are your hopes for the series and what would you want people to learn about Molly and her attitude of embracing life?
Boyer: I hope that people can look at their own lives and say, ‘What is it that I want to do with the time that I have left,’ because we don’t know how much time we have, and what is it that really makes you feel like your most authentic self? It might be messy at first, it might be unpleasant, it might feel weird, but I think there’s an urgency of ‘Live!’ I think Molly would encourage everybody who’s watching this to light that fire under themselves.

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Starting a Riot

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Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright previews her upcoming BBC and BritBox music drama Riot Women, discusses how it was influenced by her personal experiences and explains why she now recommends singing as a way to build bonds between cast members.

Like many people, Sally Wainwright has fantasised about being a member of a rock band. Now with her latest series, Riot Women, she has made that dream come true.

The BAFTA-winning writer and director – best known for Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax and Gentleman Jack – is the creative force behind this six-part drama, which introduces a group of women juggling jobs, grown-up children, complicated parents, husbands who have “buggered off” and disastrous dates and relationships. So when they come together to start a makeshift punk rock band, the group becomes a catalyst for change in their lives.

Joanna Scanlan (Beth), Rosalie Craig (Kitty), Tamsin Grieg (Holly), Lorraine Ashbourne (Jess) and Amelia Bullmore (Yvonne) make up the band, with Taj Atwal (Nisha), Chandeep Uppal (Kam) and Macy-Jacob Seelochan (Miranda) as their backing singers.

Written by Wainwright, who is also the lead director, Riot Women is produced by Drama Republic (One Day, Doctor Foster) for the BBC and BritBox. Mediawan Distribution is handling sales of the show, which is due to launch later this year.

Wainwright was at French television festival Series Mania in Lille last week, where she took to the stage with Drama Republic co-CEO Roanna Benn to preview the drama.

Sally Wainwright (left) and Roanna Benn at Series Mania

Riot Women has been a decade in the making, with Wainwright only starting to write the scripts in the last two years after completing work on recent seasons of crime drama Happy Valley and period drama Gentleman Jack.
Wainwright: I got the idea about 10 years ago and I started just mentioning it to people at work, the idea of 50-something women forming a punk rock band. Every time I mentioned it, people were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do that now,’ and I couldn’t because I was busy with Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack and other stuff.

Behind the guitar riffs and drumbeats, the show is actually a very personal story for the writer, who drew on her life experiences and relationships to develop the central quintet of characters.
Wainwright: It’s about my life. It’s about the menopause. It’s about my mother who developed dementia. You get to this age where you have to deal with things like elderly parents who now need your help, difficult children, my husband decided to leave, so there was that, and also you’re at the height of your career so you’re in demand. You’re being pulled in all sorts of different directions and you’re dealing with the menopause, which suddenly makes you feel very different. It makes you feel invisible. So I wanted to write about that.
People don’t talk about the menopause, or it can be an energy drain. It’s one of those subjects that make people go, ‘Oh my God, we’re gonna talk about that?’ So I wanted to try to find a way to talk about it that wouldn’t have that energy to it, that would have a new kind of energy to it. Most people have fantasised about being in a rock band. I know I have. It’s kind of a fantasy, but the idea of conflating the experience of the menopause… It’s kind of fantastical, but it’s also about grasping the nettle. It’s about getting to an age where you think, ‘Well, if I don’t do it now, I’m never gonna do it.’ The show has got an extraordinary energy, so hopefully it’s talking about the menopause and women of a certain age, but it’s also got something very propulsive and exciting about it.

The menopause is central to Riot Women’s story of middle-aged women who form a punk band

Riot Women isn’t a comedy, despite its humour. Instead, it’s got a very dark story running through it that wouldn’t be out of place in Happy Valley.
Wainwright: It’s much more akin to Happy Valley in many ways than, say, Last Tango [in Halifax], which is another one of my shows. It’s got a really serious, historic crime story. One of the characters had something very distressing happen to them as a child and it’s been triggered at the start of this series. And it is her evolution through the six parts about how she starts to talk about what happened to her. It finds some kind of resolution, but it’s also the start of another story where it ends.

Benn: You think it’s just about the band, but there’s something that connects them that we discover first, and then they gradually discover that is huge and has a story with a crime element to it. But [it’s always seen] through the perspective of these characters. The show has a lot of stories in it – very juicy, hooky stories, which is Sally’s raison d’être. What Sally does so well is just let you think, ‘How did you cram all that in?’ And yet it feels very organic.

The programme makers secured their “dream cast,” each of whom spent six months learning how to play their character’s instruments.
Benn: None of them can play [instruments], apart from Rosie, who’s the younger one, the singer, who comes from a musical theatre background and both Sally and I have seen her in several things on stage, so she was very much in our minds. But the others – none of them. So it was a very interesting process where they all had to learn, and they did. They properly learned how to play. They embodied the show. They lived the fantasy of becoming a band.
There’s not a huge amount of music, by the way. It’s not musical. They just play the tracks they write themselves, but when they do play the concert, you see the frisson between them. They are completely bowled over by what they’re creating together and they properly play.

Cast members such as Lorraine Ashbourne had six months to learn their instruments

Wainwright likes rehearsals and she insisted on a week before filming dedicated to band practice.
Wainwright: I think it had a real effect on them. By the end of it, I remember Amelia, who plays Yvonne, saying, ‘We really are a band. We really, actually played that and we got through it.’ You could tell they were really bonded. It had a fabulous effect. If any of your cast isn’t bonding, just get them to sing a song together.

The music in the series was actually created by Brighton-based punk duo ARXX, who wrote the songs based on ideas from Wainwright and others.
Wainwright: Just Like Your Mother was the first song, which came from me, because one of my husband’s favourite insults when we had an argument was, ‘Oh, you’re just like your mother.’ So in the song, we turned it on its head; it’s not an insult, it’s like, ‘Yes, fuck you, I am just like my mother.’ So we gave them ideas for songs, but then they put it into their ‘machine,’ as they call it, and they turned out fabulous stuff.
They wrote another song called Seeing Red, which they perform in episode four, which is about the menopause. I came up with the drumbeat, because I learned to play the drums in preparation for this show. Then we gave them some ideas about what the song should be. The first line was actually written by our police advisor: ‘I’m so depressed, I can’t get dressed.’ So everyone was throwing ideas in. Then they turned it into their own. We’re really pleased with the songs.
There are four songs in the show – Just Like Your Mother, Seeing Red, Shitting Pineapples, which is about giving birth, and Riot Women, the title.

L-R: Actors Taj Atwal and Tamsin Greig on location with Wainwright

As the creator, screenwriter, director and executive producer, Wainwright was involved across the development and production of Riot Women.
Wainwright: You write and it’s quite a solipsistic process. I meet with Roanna and the story producer and script editor, then I go away and work on my own. Then we regroup and I go on my own again. When you’re directing, it’s completely different, it’s very sociable. It is the complete opposite. I don’t really think about being an exec because I’m just there anyway. It’s an ongoing process.

Benn: But Sally does do outlines, storylining, lots of research, different people helping on particular areas, and we have got crime. There are some really tangible things. We’ve got domestic violence, we’ve got abuse within the police force. There’s a lot of stuff going on, and there’s another big one, which I won’t talk about. So we’ll do lots of storylining and talking about it, and then Sally will write outlines before she goes to write [the scripts]. We feed into that and it will go backwards and forwards. It’s very thorough.

Had Wainwright’s name not been attached to the project, Riot Women might never have been made.
Benn: Everyone in the UK is desperate to have a show with Sally, so that was easy peasy [getting the BBC commission]. There are no dead bodies in the show, so that makes it harder these days. It’s quite a hard show to describe and there are a few things that would maybe make people think, ‘Oh, is that a musical?’ It’s not. Is it just about being middle-aged, being in your 50s and 60s? No, it’s not, it’s multi-generational. It was hard to describe, but when people read the scripts, they got it, and how much is in there.
If it wasn’t Sally, it would’ve been a difficult sell, definitely. Hopefully people would read the scripts and go for it. But in this climate, it’s not what people [commissioners] are saying they’re looking for, which is really sad. It just means we don’t always have the breadth [of variety on TV], but I’m so pleased this show is coming out and that we are going to have a show with these characters at this time.

The creators are keen to stress that the BBC/BritBox show ‘isn’t a musical’

Riot Women was filmed in Hebden Bridge, the same Yorkshire town that has become synonymous with Wainwright’s crime drama Happy Valley.
Wainwright: In fact, there’s more set in Hebden Bridge than there was in Happy Valley. We really wanted to lean into the quality of the landscape and the town because it’s quite an unusual little town. It’s in West Yorkshire, near Halifax, and it’s quite an alternative little place. It’s got quite an alternative culture and community, and we really wanted that in the show. I live in a little village in Oxfordshire and I did wonder about setting it somewhere other than where I normally set things, like in a little village in the Cotswolds. But it just didn’t seem as vibrant to me as where we’ve chosen to set it.

One of the challenges on set was filming scenes with every member of Riot Women involved, which led Wainwright to ask for more rehearsal time.
Wainwright: There are always challenges. Things always go wrong, but it’s like childbirth. By the end of it, you tend to forget.

Wainwright just wants to entertain people – and hopefully make them think a little bit about the subject matter.
Wainwright: There are no shows about women in their 50s, as a rule, and it’s mad because women in their 50s are actually really fun and entertaining and interesting. It’s entertaining from start to finish, I think, but who am I to say? I don’t get sick of watching it.

Benn: It’s properly, properly funny. I know I obviously made it, so I’m going to say good things about it, but it’s properly funny and it’s properly gripping moment-by-moment until the end. We’ve worked incredibly hard with Emma and Jess to make it so. So I just want people to really get addicted to it and power their way through it and love it, and love the characters.

Wainwright: I hope it’s a good mixture as well. It is a properly dark story in places, but it never stops being funny either, which is quite unusual.

The show wasn’t always called Riot Women…
Wainwright: It was called Hot Flush for a while, but I just thought that was like, ‘Oh God, menopause. Who wants to know about that?’ So I was quite reluctant to use that; I thought it sounded old-fashioned, it sounded like a sitcom from the 80s, so I wanted to find something a bit more vibrant. Then I started to read about Courtney Love and the Riot Girl movement, so it seemed very appropriate to call it Riot Women.

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