David Tennant has revealed the sequence in There She Goes that he found the most difficult to get through.
Shaun Pye developed the BBC series, which is based on his life with his wife Sarah Crawford, their son, and their younger daughter Joey, who is learning-disabled due to a chromosomal abnormality.
There She Goes stars David as dad Simon and Jessica Hynes as mother Em, with both tackling the difficulties of raising a learning-disabled child as well as their relationship, with the show managing to give out plenty of laughs alongside incredibly emotional moments.
Miley Locke plays Rosie, the series’ central character, while Edan Hahyhurst plays her elder brother, Ben, who is based on the Pye’s son Frank. The first season aired in 2018, with a second season set to premiere in 2020, and a one-off hour-long special will show on BBC Two later this month.
There are too many terrible passages in There She Goes to list, but when asked which one was the most difficult to film, the Doctor Who actress had a quick answer.
‘For me, the most emotional scene ever … was in that very first pilot episode,’ he said.
‘The scene in the kitchen, early on, where Em and Simon admit to each other that they know something’s wrong. It’s sort of devastating and true and it was always a very difficult scene to shoot.’
Even as he recalled the sequence, he appeared to grow upset himself, admitting it was ‘impossible to describe’ what was so essential about it, ‘the honesty that the entire series represents in one moment.’
‘These two parents, their guards finally fall and they kind of fall into each other’s acceptance of the fact that they’re in a situation that’s different to the one they expected.
‘And it’s heartbreaking and also very powerful. But the whole time, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster filming this.’
Sarah Crawford, the inspiration for Jessica’s character Em, adding that it was also crucial for the series to convey ‘what it’s like when that behaviour suddenly switches,’ as Rosie, based on her daughter Joey, starts injuring herself during a tantrum.
‘I think everybody did such a brilliant job at showing what it’s like when somebody you care about is really hurting themselves and you don’t know what to do. I think it’s important that it looks like what it actually looks like in real life. Not that it happens that often, but when it does, it’s quite something. And it does hurt.’
Families with handicapped children have applauded There She Goes for unflinchingly and unabashedly examining what it’s like to raise a child with such a disability – how it impacts the rest of the family and their relationships, the highs and lows, and everything in between.
It jumps from the present to the early days of Rosie’s existence, when Simon and Em are attempting to figure out what’s wrong with their daughter and the struggles they have in getting a diagnosis and adequate treatment.
Miley, who portrays Rosie, began the series as a small girl and reprises her role as a teenager dealing with puberty while exhibiting increasingly problematic behaviours in the special episode.
While the series may have slipped under many people’s attention, it is a crucially essential depiction of what families like the Pyes and Yates’ go through on a daily basis, and the special episode is not to be missed.
There She Goes airs Wednesday June 21 at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer; series one and two are available to watch on BBC iPlayer
