Sharon Horgan’s emotional new drama explores disability rights, and the first episode airs next week

Just off the back of an impressive sweep at the IFTAs and BAFTAs with Bad Sisters, Sharon Horgan’s contribution to the comedy-drama game — Catastrophe and Motherland included — is incredibly well documented. Now, she’s taking on a much more dark, emotional, and hugely important role in the forthcoming BBC drama, Best Interests.

The drama comes from BAFTA-winning writer and disability rights activist Jack Thorne, who is perhaps best known for His Dark Materials, Help, and a wealth of other incredible shows, films and stage plays. Best Interests deals with hugely important subject matter, wherein mother Nikki (Horgan) is in court battling the doctors and her husband (Sheen) to keep her critically ill daughter Marnie alive. The series paints a gripping, intimate, and deeply moving portrait of a family driven apart when they’re forced to make a decision no parent would ever want to make.

According to the official synopsis, “Doctors believe it is in her best interests to be allowed to die, but her loving family disagree. And so begins a fight that will take them through every stage of a legal process, as they struggle to contemplate this huge decision.”

Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar, Horgan said that she initially shied away from the role, feeling at first reluctant to delve into the emotional depth of the character. “I almost didn’t take the role because it seemed way too intense, but then I realised, if I saw anyone else play Nikki, I would be so jealous,” she said. “It was gruelling … But also, I’ve never laughed more than on this project with this great cast. It was the weirdest thing. I think maybe we were all just in need of a release from the pressure of the subject matter.”

“It’s crucial to both writing and inhabiting people who feel real,” she explained. “If you want a truthful, believable piece of work, you have to embrace the fact that life always has moments of light and dark in it.”

Playing the central role of Marnie is 16-year-old Dubliner, Niamh Moriarty, who previously starred in the Gate Theatre’s 2019 production of A Christmas Carol, also scripted by Thorne. Hoping to blaze a trail for actors with disabilities, Niamh was diagnosed with a form of cerebral palsy in her legs called spastic diplegia at three years of age.

Working in the entertainment industry since she was 10, Niamh is an advocate for disability representation and equality, telling the Independent: “When I was playing her, it was important to me that I get her physicalities right. I wanted to portray that as accurately as possible for the people who would be in that circumstance … I hope that they will feel seen, because when I was a child, I never saw myself on a screen and I think if I did, it would have completely brightened my world and I would have felt so represented.”

“So, I hope that I’m able to offer that for kids. And I hope that they will be able to look at their televisions and go, ‘oh, that girl looks like me’.”

Best Interests will air on BBC One on Monday 12 June at 9pm, with the second episode airing the following day on Tuesday 13 June. You can watch the trailer below…