More TV dramas should explore fathers' struggles with parenthood, BBC's The Cry producer says
The trauma of losing a child is usually dramatised in film and TV from the mother’s point of view. But in a new BBC drama the emphasis is on how the father of the child feels and copes with such a tragedy.
The Cry promises to hook Sunday evening audiences with the harrowing story of a missing child, told through the pain of both parents.
The four-part physcological thriller sees young parents Joanna, played by Victoria star Jenna Coleman and Alistair, played by Ewen Leslie, faced with their child’s disappearance when they travel from Scotland to Australia with their son.
Adapted from Helen FitzGerald’s 2013 novel, the series takes a new approach to the story, with new scenes included to show the father's emotional struggles.
As the story unfolds the couple face public scrutiny in a small Australian community, changing their relationship for good.
“In the book, Alistair’s point of view is never portrayed, it’s told inside Joanna’s head,” said Claire Mundell, the show’s executive producer. “Alistair was vital to the programme. He is also a complex character trying to do the best thing in a terrible situation. “We felt we could add him in to understand this situation properly, it’s not just about the mother.”
At first though, the story - which has echoes of one man’s search for his disappeared daughter in the BBC drama The Missing - feels very personal to Joanna who battles with postnatal depression as one part of her experience as a young mother.
But Jacquelin Perske, who wrote the screenplay for The Cry, also wanted to focus on the couple’s experience together.
She said: “Joanna is not just the victim, we are supposed to see how both of them deal with a very real situation. “They are an extremely average couple hit with terrible circumstances. When one parent is not coping, the other will start to wonder what they can do to help.”
The book's portrayal of Alistair is only through Joanna’s eyes, so the team were left with a fair amount of creative freedom to build their three dimensional version of Alistair. Their choices were integral to how he develops as the story unfolds.
Mundell said: “We could have easily made Alistair into a monster but that wasn’t interesting to us. “The writing and Ewen Leslie’s performance give more depth to Alistair’s character, he is trying to do what he thinks is the right thing and we see his character go on a journey as well.”
Naturally mental health is a strong theme that runs through the show, the narrative dives into how our health suffers in traumatic situations. Mundell said: “The story explores mental health full stop, not just male mental health.
“Both characters are in a situation of extreme pressure and we wanted to examine how that plays out.”
Their focus lead to copious extra research to get it right. Perske specifically cited hours of research into the symptoms of postnatal depression, she said: “I needed to look into what happens if you don’t seek help or treat it.
“If people have gone through that, I needed to make sure the story had veracity.” Perske hopes viewers with their own battles will find comfort in how they have approached mental health.
She added: “Getting the story right means it can be comforting and even cathartic for women that have been through a similar experience. “It validates them and tells them that they are not alone. This is a very real thing, lots of people go through it and it’s very much a troubled experience.”
