Together is the new BBC Two film airing this week – here’s all you need to know!
The BBC describes the single feature-length drama as a “Hilarious and heartbreaking story of a couple forced to re-evaluate themselves and their relationship through the reality of lockdown.”
Together cast
Bafta award-winning and Golden Globe nominated James McAvoy (Split, X-Men franchise, His Dark Materials) and Bafta award-winning and Emmy nominated Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Military Wives) will take up the lead roles in the love story from multi award-winning writer, Dennis Kelly’s (Utopia, Pulling, The Third Day).
James McAvoy play ‘He’ while Sharon Horgan plays ‘She’ with Samuel Logan playing their song ‘Artie’.
Directed by the Academy, Emmy and Bafta award-winning director, Stephen Daldry (The Crown, Billy Elliot, The Reader) the film is set in the UK from the first days of the pandemic lockdown in March 2020 until present day. Together is produced by Guy Heeley (Locke, Denial, London Spy) and the multi-award winning West End and Broadway theatre producer Sonia Friedman (TV credits include: Uncle Vanya, The Dresser, Wolf Hall).
What’s it all about?
She is a charity worker, a coordinator for all of Europe at a refugee charity. She’s the daughter of a dentist father and an ‘old
socialist’ mother – the only grandparent still around.
He, meanwhile, is a self-employed, self-made man who runs a boutique computing consultancy. He’s been forced to furlough his staff and take up growing vegetables – something he’s very proud of.
Artie is their 10-year-old son and the one thing that has kept his parents’ relationship together – until lockdown.
When to aatch on TV and online
Together will air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on Thursday, 17 June at 9PM.
James McAvoy said: “Dennis writes so wittily for these characters and his script had me within the first few pages. When I heard Sharon was involved with Stephen Daldry directing it was a no brainer. It’s a hilarious, heartfelt, entertaining and unconsciously funny exploration of a relationship and a couple facing real tragedy across a year we have all lived through. ”
Sharon Horgan aded: “I think everyone who got involved in this film had no intention of doing a covid drama but then we read Dennis’ script and changed our minds. We shot this in ten days so it was a beautifully stressful experience. Working with Dennis again – and Stephen Daldry and James McAvoy both of whom I’ve admired for years was a joy.
“But it also felt like we were making something important. And the fact that it feels like news means that the covid death toll, the tragedy of so many lives lost unnecessarily has not been talked about enough”.
Writer, Dennis Kelly commented: “Together is about a couple who totally hate each other, but have somehow found a way of existing together by not talking to, thinking about, noticing, communicating with or being in the same room as each other – then lockdown happens.
“It’s about how humans negotiate their shared experiences when they think they have nothing in common other than staying alive, and it’s about how you can hate what you love and love what you hate. And Sharon Horgan and James McAvoy are brilliant in it.”
More on: BBC One
