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BBC drama 'The A Word' - starring Christopher Eccleston - to tackle autism

AGXStarseed

AGXStarseed

Well-Known Member
(Not written by me)

Former Doctor Who star says he is ‘proud’ to star in the six-part series looking at a family struggling to cope when the youngest son is diagnosed with autism



Christopher Eccleston is to star in BBC drama The A Word. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

Former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston has said he is “proud” to star in The A Word, a new six-part BBC1 drama with autism at its heart.

Revolving around the Hughes family, The A Word depicts their struggle to come to terms with life when the youngest son is diagnosed with autism.

Described as “a funny and thought-provoking series about parenthood and childhood”, it will tell the story of how the Hugheses learn to communicate properly with each other in order to communicate with their autistic family member.

Talking about the project, Eccleston said: “I’m very proud to be reunited with writer Peter Bowker on The A Word. This is a special job for us all. We hope the audience take us to their hearts.”

Bowker said: “We have the opportunity here to make something funny, tough, realistic and inventive about contemporary family life and autism. In a society where imperfection increasingly comes with blame attached, it seems timely to look at how autism is regarded both within a family and the wider community - and to give some insight into how that experience might be for the child on the autism spectrum.”

He added: “It’s a drama full of ideas – about parenthood, about disability, about communication, about community – and will emphatically engage an audience whatever their experience of the subject.”

The A Word will be shot on location in The Lake District and also at Manchester’s Space Project.


SOURCE: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/26/bbc-drama-the-a-word-christopher-eccleston-autism
 
AGXStarseed said:
(Not written by me)

Former Doctor Who star says he is ‘proud’ to star in the six-part series looking at a family struggling to cope when the youngest son is diagnosed with autism



Christopher Eccleston is to star in BBC drama The A Word. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

Former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston has said he is “proud” to star in The A Word, a new six-part BBC1 drama with autism at its heart.

Revolving around the Hughes family, The A Word depicts their struggle to come to terms with life when the youngest son is diagnosed with autism.

Described as “a funny and thought-provoking series about parenthood and childhood”, it will tell the story of how the Hugheses learn to communicate properly with each other in order to communicate with their autistic family member.

Talking about the project, Eccleston said: “I’m very proud to be reunited with writer Peter Bowker on The A Word. This is a special job for us all. We hope the audience take us to their hearts.”

Bowker said: “We have the opportunity here to make something funny, tough, realistic and inventive about contemporary family life and autism. In a society where imperfection increasingly comes with blame attached, it seems timely to look at how autism is regarded both within a family and the wider community - and to give some insight into how that experience might be for the child on the autism spectrum.”

He added: “It’s a drama full of ideas – about parenthood, about disability, about communication, about community – and will emphatically engage an audience whatever their experience of the subject.”

The A Word will be shot on location in The Lake District and also at Manchester’s Space Project.


SOURCE: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/26/bbc-drama-the-a-word-christopher-eccleston-autism
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I'm looking forward to this drama series :)
 
I watched it. I think it was supposed to be a black comedy but the humour fell a bit flat and seemed awkward. Also the way the family could get a referral from a first specialist who had already discharged them years before, to another specialist isn't how the NHS works. They would have had to go back to the GP and started again. I know it was adapted from an Israeli series so maybe that is how things work there but it could have been adapted better on that score.

I also found it upsetting as the boy with autism reminded me somewhat of myself as a child. Although I was never allowed to have headphones at that age I still obsessively listened to songs again and again, and I could memorise them (both lyrics and backing music) easily as well as information about the song and the band. My older sisters went to secondary school and sixth form across the road from our house and when in sixth form they were allowed to play music in the common room. As I have very acute hearing I could hear it like it was in my house. They used to play the Smiths a lot, and it only took a few listens when I was off school to memorise the baseline of ' there is a light that never goes out'. When I got older I kept talking about The Smiths' song I kept hearing as a child and humming/banging out the baseline but I didn't know the title. My family didn't have a clue what it was but I got The Smiths' greatest hits, found it immediately and showed them. They were amazed. Also the way the little boy never gets invited to parties, luckily I had three or four friends who consistently invited me to their parties despite my somewhat odd behaviour at previous parties, but I never got invited by anyone else, even though everyone else in my class did. Bad memories :(


ETA: the location was bugging me, as it looked familiar but I couldn't put my finger on it. I then found out it was The Lake District which is 2 or 3 hours drive from Manchester, and Manchester is in no way the nearest urban centre to it, that would be Carlisle or Lancaster depending on which part of the Lake District it is. So it was unfeasible that the grandad would take his grandson to Manchester to the science museum as a quick after school jaunt. To TV producers everywhere 'up North' is a stones throw from everywhere else, it seems. It is as annoying when they used Halifax for Stockport in Kingdom; the two places look nothing like each other.
 
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Watched it.

Random thoughts:-

-I think the grandad character may have been writen to include some ASD traits, and wonder if the possibility of ASD running in a family, may also be brought up at some point.

-I like the moments when the little boy is in his own world, the music becomes louder and there's a break from the dialogue and drama.

-I like the views of the Lake district.
 
Vinca said:
I think the grandad character may have been writen to include some ASD traits, and wonder if the possibility of ASD running in a family, may also be brought up at some point.
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That's exactly what I thought. In fact, when the drama began I thought there was going to be a twist. It was the grandad that had the undiagnosed ASD.
 
Hmm interesting. I did pick that up about the grandad but wasn't sure whether that was what was intended as a lot of older Northern men are like that-been looking at digital spy and a lot of the posters there have come to that conclusion too.
 
I thought it was quite good. I like how the slipped in some common misconceptions to correct them like thinking that autism is a disease and that all people with autism don't make eye contact. There's a good few things that I could relate to as well such as not being able to talk at the expected age. Looking forward to the next episode.
 
Southern Discomfort said:
I thought it was quite good. I like how the slipped in some common misconceptions to correct them like thinking that autism is a disease and that all people with autism don't make eye contact. There's a good few things that I could relate to as well such as not being able to talk at the expected age. Looking forward to the next episode.
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Yeah, my favorite line was when the Granddad asked if there was a cure to which the mother replied "it's not a disease!"
That said, one of the minor issues I had following his diagnosis was one of the things the mother said.

Don't get me wrong; the parents been in shock and denial was true enough, her wanting a second opinion was fair enough and her not wanting her son to be labelled so young would ring true with many parents, but the bit where the dad starts playing a song in the car for their son to sing to and the mother turns it off before claiming that the dad's taste in music may have made their son Autistic was really stupid.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting it and I know parents of autistic children throughout history have played the "who/what is to blame" game with wanting to know why their child behaves like they do (with the reasons ranging from plausible to pathetic), but that line just really annoyed me.
 
I watched with a lot of anticipation and I quite liked most of what I saw.

I found the show moving and quite realistic. Some of the mannerisms seem reasonable, as was the “shutdown” at the party. I do accept that there were some stereotypes in the behaviour shown, but at least they are attempting to portray this in a realistic way. IMO there is a huge lack of understanding to the whole Autistic Spectrum, quite frankly until it was suggested I had Aspergers, my knowledge was sorely lacking too.

So in this sense, some of the reaction to the diagnosis in the show are ill informed, but that is the case in real life unfortunately.

I am looking forward to the subsequent episodes to see how they continuing to portray this.
 
By the way, found out the Israeli drama this is closely based off is called 'yellow peppers' but had an alternate title of 'the A word'
 
The mother really annoyed me in Episode 2.
Glad she got a small 'dose of reality' near the end from her husband, but the way she acted, the decisions she made and how rude she was to the people around her when she didn't get the answers she wanted made me really cross.
I'll give episode 3 a chance (as per my '3-episode rule' when I watch a new TV series) but if it bothers me like this episode did, then I won't be watching any further.

Of course, this isn't to say there wasn't any redeeming factors - such as an actual Autistic boy appearing in the episode to show the father around a school for Autistics.
 
It painted a bad picture of home education (almost never called home schooling in the UK) also. Throwing around all the usual stereotypes, and virtually nobody who home educates makes a timetable and gets a bunch of relatives and friends to fill in the schedule-although from my understanding that storyline was a direct lift from the Israeli version so maybe they do that there? I home educate and there are many kids with Aspergers or any form of autism who really thrive being home educated. The writer who adapted it for a UK audience could have really researched how home education works in the UK, just in general and also for families with Autistic children. I'm not saying the family should have chosen home ed in the end but just a better exploration of the issues would have been nice. A real missed opportunity.
 
Astroganga said:
It painted a bad picture of home education (almost never called home schooling in the UK) also. Throwing around all the usual stereotypes, and virtually nobody who home educates makes a timetable and gets a bunch of relatives and friends to fill in the schedule-although from my understanding that storyline was a direct lift from the Israeli version so maybe they do that there? I home educate and there are many kids with Aspergers or any form of autism who really thrive being home educated. The writer who adapted it for a UK audience could have really researched how home education works in the UK, just in general and also for families with Autistic children. I'm not saying the family should have chosen home ed in the end but just a better exploration of the issues would have been nice. A real missed opportunity.
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Yeah, I think a lot of it's realism is going to get lost as a result of just adapting it from the Israeli version.

Keeping on with the mother, she said in the first episode that she wanted a second opinion regarding Joe and so asked her friend to talk to another 'expert' (in this case the woman's ex Michael). However, when she comes back saying Michael has said the same thing, the mother not only refuses to believe it (openly saying that 'perhaps all the experts are wrong') but rudely accuses her friend of been 'persuaded' by Michael to believe what he had to say.

Then later, when the dad goes to the specialist school for people on the spectrum, he's pretty impressed with what he sees (which was a surprise to me because I thought he would be put off by the young Autistic showing him around), but then when he tells the mother and shows her the paperwork, she not only has a go at him for doing it but claims that - due to her son mimicking people around him - he will come out of the school more Autistic then when he first went in.

I think you can tell why she annoyed me so much - she's very domineering and bull-headed
 
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