Okay, OK. We know Black Mirror episodes are intended to mirror our reality, bring to light terrifying potential future situations, and generally worry us out – but this is just bizarre.
Season six of the iconic programme has concluded, and fans have been raving about episode one, titled Joan is Awful.
Joan, portrayed by Annie Murphy, is shocked when she switches on, well, Streamberry (aka, Netflix) and sees a heroine played by Salma Hayek with her hair, name, and life on television.
Gulp, for sure. What follows is a frantic display that we will not spoil for you.
So it came as a surprise when Fearne Cotton – yes, the actual one – turned to social media to announce the release of her debut novel, Scripted, in June of next year.
A few of Fearne’s fans leapt to compare her concept to the Black Mirror episode in the comments section of her video, as one wrote: ‘Watch black mirror joan is awful its kind of like this.’ [sic]
Another said: ‘Have you seen the first episode of Black mirror? It’s called Jane is awful and it’s a very similar story as Scripted which I cannot wait to read by the way!’
‘Love this – very Black Mirror, which is right up my street!’ commented someone else.
‘I’ve written a hell of a lot of non-fiction but I’ve been really excited by the idea of fiction,’ Fearne said in the self-facing video.
‘I kind of had this idea land in my head out of the blue, it was really strange,’ said Fearne, before she went on to explain the general blurb of the book.
The description for The Happy Place podcaster began very typical, with a lady in her early 30s who has lost her voice (metaphorically, not literally) and want to regain it.
‘She’s got a job that she loves, she’s got great friends, but there are other characters in her life that are problematic,’ explained Fearne.
‘Her mum, her dad, her sister, her boss at work, her boyfriend. They all have really challenging qualities, and whenever she’s faced with one of these people and a dilemma she tends to go silent.’
And where does Joan is Awful begin? With a disillusioned 30-something who has lost her voice and direction and is considering having an affair to forge her own path and get rid of a dull lover.
Okay, this isn’t all that unusual. But mark this Friday as Freaky Friday because things are going to become strange.
Full disclosure: Fearne began writing the book around a year and a half ago, long before Joan Is Awful premiered on our television screens. So it’s not a case of plagiarism, but rather the old adage “great minds think alike.”
Fearne went on to discuss what she considers the “odd” aspect of her debut work, completely oblivious of how strangely familiar it is.
‘Here’s the weird bit of the book,’ she began. ‘When Jade is out running one day she stumbles across a wad of paper, and intrigued, she picks up this wad of paper, and sneakily takes a look.’
Could this be… Streamberry on paper?
She continued: ‘Then she sees more closely that her name is in the script, so she’s obviously really freaked out. Then she sees her boyfriend’s name in the script, and she’s very, very, freaked out.
‘So she reads through this first script, and this is a scene from her life that has not happened but feels very familiar of the dynamic between her and her boyfriend Adam.’
Jade (weirdly, they both start with J) is understandably terrified, much like Joan.
‘Anyway, it transpires a few hours later in the day that exact scene unfurls,’ revealed Fearne, ‘and she has that exact scripted dynamic come to life a little later on in the day with her boyfriend.’
Um. Ok. So, er, Joan is Awful? You know, the part – no, the entire show – where Joan’s true life unfolds on screen?
Aside from the obvious contrasts, the primary one here is that in Black Mirror, Joan’s life is televised after it has occurred in real time, whereas Jade’s life is scripted.
But it’s in the same bizarre universe, and we adore Fearne and Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker for it.
With further explanation, Fearne added: ‘So throughout the book when there’s all sorts of drama and different circumstances for Jade to navigate, she keeps seeing these scripts turn up in the weirdest of places, and each one of them depicts a scene with one of these tricky people in her life, that sits in the future.’
While Black Mirror is a cautionary tale about signing terms and conditions on the spur of the moment, with a significant hint of a hero, coming-of-age arc, Scripted seems comparable to the latter.
While on-screen Joan, portrayed by Salma, portrays’real life’ Joan as, well, nasty, it looks Fearne’s character Jade will recognise how quiet she’s become as a result of witnessing her life through the eyes of an outsider.
‘So you can imagine what happens,’ added Fearne (um, yes, we can actually!).
‘Throughout the book Jade starts to get a sense of how little she’s saying in these dynamics or how she’s not saying what she really wants.
‘So you will witness Jade go through this beautiful journey of finding her voice and feeling courageous enough to use it, an d all sorts of wonderful things happen.’
Sounds like an ending we’ve seen before, with actress Annie bashing Salma’s ‘terrible’ Joan to metaphorical smithereens.
If the popularity of Black Mirror is any indication, Fearne has touched on something exciting here.
We’re ecstatic to read it, and Fearne is ecstatic to be able to share it with the world.
‘It seemed like a really personal experience, but I am so happy to get it out there,’ she said.
Yikes! It’s a Black Mirror moment regarding Black Mirror. We’re simply bewildered now.
