Lisa McGee on creating How to Get to Heaven from Belfast & what the future holds for Derry Girls

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0:01

Welcome to Insiders, a podcast all about the world of television with me, Peter

0:40

Fincher and me, Jimmy Melville.

0:44

This is the podcast for people who love TV and who want to know a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes.

0:45

This week we've got a special guest. Peter. We got someone coming on.

0:52

Yeah, we have. We normally run through a few topical television stories. We've got such a guest. We're so excited.

0:55

Can I say just a bit of a shout out for Liverpool?

1:01

A shout out for Liverpool, not the

1:04

football team, for the city, basically. The Liverpool Film office has just released an impact report and it's shown that it's made a huge profit for the region over since 2018 they've shot something like 1,600 different productions and Liverpool is now officially the most filmed city outside of London. And on the back of that, of course the exciting news is that the Little woods building itself, this huge building which is a bit like the Hoover building on the A40, the plan is now to convert that into a state of the art studio and production center with a school in the middle of it teaching young people 16 to 18 year olds all the skills in our industry. So it's a good news story about Liverpool which I'd like to get out there. Is that all right with you?

1:06

You've got it out there, yeah. Are you looking for a healthy discount then on your next production that you take to Liverpool and film and. No, I'm based on. You know, I'll give you a plug on our podcast.

1:50

I'll tell you what though, it's. This is Jermaine to our guest coming on. I'd like to tell some stories in Liverpool which are about the resilience and the hope in Liverpool as opposed to dodgy policemen and cocaine dealers.

2:00

Did you see the Left bank show? Because I'm afraid to say this is not going to help your theory.

2:12

The city is out.

2:17

The city is out.

2:18

Yeah, it's all about. It's full of cocaine dealers.

2:19

Yeah, yeah, it's gangsters. Good show, though. It's a really good show. They're making sense.

2:21

It's a very good show. But come on, let's have other shows where people aren't dealing in drugs or being troubled police officers.

2:24

Yeah, okay. All right, well, that's a shout out to the creative community. And right, leads into our shiny show, Liverpool.

2:31

Our guest comes from a city not dissimilar to Liverpool. She comes from Belfast. And she is no other than Lisa

2:38

McGee, the brilliant writer and creative genius behind the BAFTA and Emmy winning Derry Girls. And Lisa's new series, how to get to Heaven From Belfast has just launched two fantastic reviews on Netflix. And Lisa, it's so great to have you on the show and we're going to talk about you and we're going to talk about your writing, but just before we do, I just want to check something because Jimmy has told me this and I don't quite believe it. He says you're a fan of our podcast.

2:44

I am. I'm a massive fan. Yeah, I love it.

3:09

That's so nice to hear. And he also told me he can't

3:12

get enough of this. It's pathetic.

3:14

I know, I know. Just. Just tickle our tummy for a second, if you don't mind. He also says that you wondered whether Owen existed. The whole idea of does Owen exist? I think comes from you, Lisa. Yes, he does exist.

3:16

But if you listen, I think particularly the earlier ones, it really sounds like you're taking the piss.

3:27

Well, we are.

3:35

The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

3:37

We sail very close to an industrial tribunal with, with Owen every week. Any minute now we'll be.

3:40

Or possibly now we'll be taken off. You can't actually see him at the moment. He might be out there talking to the HR department.

3:47

Owens is a man of enormous patience or brilliant medication. We haven't quite worked out. Anyway, can I ask Lisa how she's feeling after? Because she's just done about two weeks of what end to end press interviews, junkets, screenings for how she's having from Belfast. How was that?

3:53

It was exhausting. I have a lot more sympathy for these actors now that have to do it again and again and again. It's not my natural. I don't think it's where I love being, do you know? But it was. It was interesting and the response was great and I just felt like I was saying the same thing over and over and over again and started to lose sight of where I was and what was happening. And yeah, I'm kind of glad it's over.

4:15

And tell me, Lisa, because obviously Derry Girls was Channel four, was a huge hit on Channel four. But how to get to Heaven is. Is. Is on Netflix. And in many ways that feels like a very modern move to go from, you know, terrestrial broadcasted to one of the streamers. But how different is the experience of launching a show on Netflix and writing a show for Netflix?

4:42

Well, the writing and making of the show was very similar for me because I surround myself with the same people. You know, it's like Jimmy and Hat Trick and the exec producers I've worked with for a long time. So my. The people around me have stayed the same for years. So not like, apart from the occasional kind of meeting with Netflix and stuff where it felt a bit like the scale was a bit bigger or whatever, but it felt very similar. The creative stuff. For me, the launching of the show is very different and I still haven't got my head around it. And this idea that it's all out at once, I don't think that ever really fully landed with me, that it's all out at once and that everyone is at different stages of it in the first couple of days and that it goes all around the world and it's just, you know, it's insane. And I'm still kind of finding my feet with Arabic.

5:06

Well, do you know it's number one in the UK and in the whole of Ireland?

5:59

I knew that. Yeah. Yeah. I've been sent a lot of screen graphs.

6:03

Any other countries that it's.

6:08

Yes, it's in the top 10 in Croatia and actually, no, seriously, Australia, Canada, places across Europe. I think in the US it's, you know, it's not in the kind of top five shows yet, but they're very happy with it. It's been a fantastic launch. I mean, I knew it was going to be a hit, but you always hold your breath a little bit because you don't quite know.

6:11

Oh, yeah.

6:34

Lisa, can we just go back to. You've had a huge success with Derry Girls. It feels like a definitive show of its sort. And then you move not only from Channel 4 to Netflix, but you move from a more recognizably sitcom setup to a comedy drama with an element of mystery and somebody who's died and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, I'd love to know about how you got from that one genre to a slightly different genre in your mind.

6:35

I think the mystery genre has always been my favorite as a viewer. You Know, and I think, like, it's always been something I've wanted to try, as, you know, they're incredibly difficult to write. Do you know those detective shows, those mystery shows, you know, Murder, She Wrote in Colombo and stuff, are my favorite TV shows. I needed. If I was going to do one, I needed to do it my way. So I needed to, like, make it suit my tone, if that. I don't think I could have written one in a straighter way, if that makes sense. So I guess I found I had to kind of mash up those two tones so that it would feel like a good fit for me. So I wanted to do it, but make it very kind of Irish and chaotic and, you know, ensemble. A lot of those shows are single person, you know, are centered around one person really, aren't they? But, like, I know I write better if it's an ensemble, so it was just finding a way to do what I wanted to do. But in my voice.

7:05

You haven't got at the heart of it a detective. You've got at the heart of it three friends.

8:05

Yeah, they sort of become detectives. Like, they, they. And they're very bad at it for most of the show. You know, they get. Towards the end, they sort of get the hang of it a bit. But I love that idea as well of a lot of my friends listen to a lot of true crime and think they could have a crack at solving it. You know, as lots of, I think, groups of women, I think a lot of women would really love to be detectives, you know, or private investigators. So I think, like, that, that it was that sort of wish fulfillment thing as well. You know, I'd love me and my friends to go on the road and solve a mystery.

8:09

I'm guessing, but Jimmy, you can confirm this or not that you had a bigger budget for, for how to Get Heaven From Belfast than for Derry Girls. Was that. Was that a kind of liberating thing or was that a scary thing as it might be from another point of view, when you're, when you're, You're. You're not within the tighter constraints of a. Of a precinct and a family or a couple of. Do you see what I mean?

8:45

Well, funny enough, I can answer that. Is that we. Lisa was well into the scripts before we got the budget together. So she was writing what she wanted to write.

9:09

Yeah, the scale of it was like, kind of unintentional. Like, I didn't. After Derry Gears, I remember saying, I'm not like, I don't want to write something with that many people in it, again, because it's too harsh. And then this was even worse. But the story sort of just tells you what it wants to do sometimes, and you can't. You just have to go that way.

9:18

Is it a different editorial process in terms of, you know, with Channel 4 or, you know, with BBC or ITV? We're kind of used to how the commissioners interact with the programs that they commission. Did you find it was quite similar with Netflix with just different people?

9:38

Yeah. So Channel 4 was. So we had so much freedom to know. But my. Any experience I had with Channel four, even prior to that was the same. Like, I loved working there because they just sort of. They got it and they backed it. And so I had had a great time working there. And we. Any. Any notes we got were always. Everyone was pulling in the same direction. We were all making the same show. What happened at Netflix was interesting because so I had the same team. So everyone, again, we all had the same vision. We're making the same thing. But Tom Lyons at Netflix was brilliant because he was able. Because it's a mystery. He was able to. Cause we're all so close and we've been working together so long, he was able to come in with fresh eyes and sort of shine a light on what buts of it might not be working or might not be clear or, you know, might be confusing rather than mysterious, you know, so it was great, I think because of this genre, it was great to have someone common that could guide us on that front a bit. So. But. But it was all very positive.

9:56

Am I right in thinking you used a writer's room this time, Lisa, and then that's a change from the way you worked before?

11:08

Well, I think probably the reason, if I'm like, if we're honest, we can't really remember, is time. I think, like, we realized we needed to be faster and. But no, I wouldn't really want to do it any other way, you know. Derry Gears was so personal. I always think it would have been nearly. It would have been more difficult to explain what I meant to another writer than for me to just do it. But this. You needed those other. You needed other heads. And it was actually amazing because one of them was a good horror writer and one of them was. Could kind of write very. That very heightened ridiculous comedy very well. And one was. She wrote the Younger Gears very well. The darker stuff, you know, the darker emotional stuff. So everyone had different strengths that even we were taking stuff out of episodes then and getting writers to just write one section of them or rewrite them when we were pushed for time. So that was kind of amazing because it is just a big puzzle, this. And you do have more heads on it as better, you know. And then I could just sort of take, like I was saying, like, at one point I nearly became, I know nothing about sport, so this probably doesn't make any sense, but like a coach do, you know, like the person sort of putting the pieces together and working out where we needed to go. And so it was hugely helpful. And I would want to work like that on the next thing I do. And the great. My. My husband's a writer on the show and we've written together before. And the brilliant thing about him with me is he really doesn't care what he say, you know, like, he really doesn't care. He will just be like, that doesn't make sense. That's not good enough. So, like, I know I'm having a very honest voice in the room that's not afraid of offending me and just wants it to be better.

11:13

But you know what I got a feeling whenever I met you on set or saw you with the team is how close you all were. I mean, you work with Mike Lennox, who's directed it, and I've got to say, he did such a fantastic job. He's now being courted by the great and the good in America. They're getting him to direct shows over there as well now. But, I mean, you've known Mike for many years, haven't you?

13:03

Yeah, I've known Mike a long, long time. And I remember, like, us being. Having no money in London and going to Pizza Express and plotting to take over the world. You know, I was working on other people's TV shows and bits and pieces, and Mike was making his film school films. So then the first time we really worked together was Derry Girls, and it just like, completely clicked. And he's just such a writer's director, you know, and I love working with him because there's just a shorthand we have now that it's just so much faster. He just gets at what I mean. And he never, ever makes a decision that. Well, first he would always check with me, but I know he would never make a creative decision that wouldn't be right, which is remarkable.

13:24

Lisa, take us, take us back. Because I think, you know, many of our listeners may. May have first been familiar with your work in Derry Girls, which seem to kind of explode onto the. Onto the screen as a, you know, fully formed and brilliant comedy, taking us to A world that comedy's often hadn't taken us to in an era that we'd often seen in a very, very different way. But talk us through how you got to there. I'd love to know more about that.

14:14

Yeah. So I went to. I always think when you say these things and on the run, it sounds like you had a great plan and it all clicked on, do you know? And if it, like, actually, it was chaos. I went to Queen's University to do drama. I was already writing. I was writing since I was little. Like, it's all I wanted to do. So I was already writing plays by that point. They weren't very good, but I was writing them. And then I would have, like, put those on at Queens, then graduated from Queens and would have put them on in pubs and stuff, you know, like pub theater. And then a film producer saw one of them and was interested in maybe turning it into a film. Alongside that, I was doing plays. I was attached to the national theater, do you know, and making a bit of money doing plays. And I used my plays as my specs kind of thing. And then I started getting TV work. So I wrote. The first thing I did was like a T4, do you remember, on Channel 4?

14:46

Yes.

15:43

Yeah, yeah, I did a thing on T4. I wrote on a show, like a kids, like a teen show thing. And then I. Then I created a show in Ireland called Raw that ran for five series on rta.

15:44

What was Raw about?

15:57

Raw was about a kitchen in Dublin, like, you know, like a fancy restaurants, kitchen staff. And it was. It was a course. Films. It was a British company, no cost films. Yeah, yeah, I did that for a while, but I was writing on British stuff as well. Like I was writing Being Human for the BBC and I was writing. I did stuff like the White Queen and Andy and Summers, period dramas and things. So I did a bit of everything on other people's stuff. And then I created my first sitcom, which was called London Irish, for Channel four, which is where I felt really at home, because I loved writing comedy. There was always comedy on everything I wrote, but I loved writing comedy. And I love was the first time I got the chance to write Northern Irish characters. And that doesn't land the way they wanted it to land. Like it didn't get the audience that they wanted. When I look at the audience it did get, now it would be a big audience, do you know what I mean? But then it was like. It was. This is 13 years ago. So they canceled that after one series. But it was Nerys Evans and Phil Clark, and they were just so amazing and supportive and brilliant, and they were like, look, write something else. Write a spec. Write a script for us. And so I wrote Derry Girls and then took it to Jimmy. And then the rest is Australia.

15:58

I think Channel four on this podcast, we, you know, we tend to criticize when we need to, but I think Channel 4 needs to be praised for this, no matter what the regime is. Wonder what the administration, it seems to be baked into their policy once they find a writer they like, like the Father Ted writers, Graham and Arthur Matthews. They wrote a show called Paris, didn't they, Peter?

17:24

They did, yeah. I'm afraid to say we produced it

17:43

at talkback, and it was a complete failure.

17:46

Okay.

17:49

And then the response was, well, why don't you write something else? And they wrote Father Ted.

17:50

Yeah. I mean, not. I often think about. Because I have. I haven't seen Paris, but I'd heard that story. And it's like, that's the attitude. Like, I don't know. I worry that wouldn't happen now. Do you know, I just really worry about that because it just went, well, that doesn't work the way we wanted it to. What else can you do? Because they knew in the culture they needed the voice. They knew it was the comedy voices they needed. And now it's like, if it's not a runaway hut all over the world overnight, that's like, you know, I do think that's sad.

17:54

I agree with you about Channel 4, and that's deep in their tradition to find talent and then stick with people and say, what do you want to do next? But to that very point, I wonder how they feel about the fact that How to get to Heaven from Belfast is on. Is on Netflix. You know, do they feel, oh, you know, we stuck with Lisa. We, you know. Well, to be fair, is it a purely. I mean, you may be able to answer this, Jimmy. Is it a purely financial thing? Yeah. Where they think the trouble is, if you want this kind of budget, we haven't got it. Or is it. Which is a slightly different thing, a. An exposure thing, because you wouldn't be number one in Croatia if How to get to Heaven was on Channel four.

18:27

The Channel four thing, I can answer that, because in a way, Lisa wrote the show, and then my job was to find the money to make the show. And of course, we went to Channel 4 because we love Channel 4. Hatrick was formed off the back of commissions by Channel 4. Back in the day, Lisa's career was Kickstarted by Channel four. So we have a big affection for Channel four. And we came up with the budget and it was a simple matter of money. And Ian Katz and I had a very frank conversation. And of course he was upset, as he would be, but he understood. You know, I said, the only thing we can do to make you feel better is for Lisa and I not to make the show and no one ever sees the show. And he said, no, of course. So I said, unless channel four can find the entirety of the budget. Now, what I will say is that, you know, the streamers now want global rights. So the fact is that it's very hard now for local broadcasters to carve out their territory from the global streamers because, you know, understandably the streamers putting up a lot of the money, they want all of the rights. But it wasn't a, it wasn't in terms of exposure. It was in just a purely financial

19:13

budget so that people understand this. Does that mean that by going to Netflix you've got the budget you needed to make the show you wanted to make Lisa. But, but ultimately they've got global rights forever. So you're never, you're never going to be able to resell it in 10 years time to.

20:20

I think that's what it means. Yeah. I mean, I don't really know the answer, but I think so.

20:36

A very cynical agent in America once said to me, he said the best deal my clients can get from Netflix is to do one series and then it fails because all the money's up front. But if it's a big hit over the years, Netflix wins out and the creators clearly, you know, you're on that long tail. Whereas if you're selling a show to a terrestrial, you keep the rights and then you can, you know, you can make money from the rights.

20:41

Yeah,

21:07

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21:52

So, Lisa, you know, when you think about Dairy Girls, do you think there's a life beyond the TV show? I have to ask, because people are always asking me, is Lisa gonna write Derry Girls, the musical?

22:20

Yeah, I think they're. I mean, I would love to. I would love to. I haven't got an idea because the

22:32

music in the show is so brilliant. I know you'd have original music, but music is part of your creative output, isn't it?

22:37

Yeah, I would. And I think it would really lend itself to a musical. And I love, like, obviously, I love musicals and I would love to have a crack. It's just finding the right story. Do you know, like, how to. Where we. Where we come in and where we leave them and what they're doing? Because I think it probably has to. The Derry gear stories in every episode are quite small. Do you know, I think it might have to be something a bit bigger, but still feel truthful. So I think it's just about finding that. But, yeah, I mean, I'd love to do that.

22:45

You know, Peter's a composer.

23:22

Oh, God, here we go.

23:24

Peter, Peter, Peter. We wrote a pantomime when we were at university, and Peter wrote all the songs.

23:25

Is that true?

23:31

Yeah.

23:32

And they were very good.

23:32

Why do you think Lisa would be interested in that?

23:33

I'm just. Peter, I'm trying to pick. I'm looking after your interests.

23:36

Nobody's mentioned this in public for several decades, Jimmy.

23:42

I know, but, you know, it is true. You know, we might consider you.

23:45

Yeah.

23:49

Tell me about the music. When. Because in. I don't know whether you know this. I had a meeting at Netflix when Netflix wanted to buy the series to acquire it. And I met a guy, he's probably been fired since, but he was head of acquisitions in Los Angeles. And he said to me, yeah, I think we'll buy it, but you have to remove all the music and replace it with library music because it's too expensive.

23:50

I remember. Yeah.

24:13

And I said, well, no, the music. I said, you know, Lisa writes the cues in for the music in the scenes. And often the music counterpoints what's in the scene or it underlines what's in the scene. You went, no, no, no, no, no. Tell Lisa McGee that, you know, her career will be very advanced once it's on. Talk to Michaela Cole. Talk to Phoebe Waller Bridge. And I said to this guy, I'm really sorry. I said, but It's a Channel 4 show, and, you know, they paid for it and they're the dog and you are a beautiful bushy tail. I said, so if necessary, we'll have to sell it ourselves. And in the end, they relented. And in fact, they did buy the show. And of course they. Of course they can afford to pay for the music.

24:14

Yeah, for most of the music. We had to replace some, but. Yeah, yeah.

24:57

Oh, did we have to replace some?

25:01

Oh, yeah. Like, there's stuff. So, like, there's. I mean, it's so complicated, but there's a Madonna song and.

25:02

And we couldn't get clearance globally.

25:09

We couldn't get clearance globally for that. So. Pray no. Like a Prayer. And we use Pray in the. And the global version. But. But then we had to go back and. And, yeah, redo all that because the music is so important, so you can't just whip out a cue and, you know, like, so it. That was. Every time we put it out on Channel four, we knew we were going to use a song that we may have to replace, but it was worth it because to have it on Channel 4 was worth it, you know, and then we'd worry about it and try and get it as close as possible. Also, like, I get really jealous. Like, I use music a lot and what I do, it's a big. It's a big important part of the energy of what I do. But I get jealous of all the writers that like this country that. So that is such a quiet show, do. You know, And. And they don't need. They don't need music. You know, it's just birds tweeting and stuff. And. And it's like. But that's there. They can do that. But I think, like, that's, again, probably tone like a lot of what I've done with Derry Gears. And this is like, it's to try and kind of suggest that no matter how dark or shit things get, there's joy. And music's a huge part of that for people, you know, and, you know, well, art in general, like. But music and joyfulness and keeping everything kind of hopeful is really important.

25:11

And the gear changes in how to Get To Heaven. I mean, that one that sticks in my mind is that when the girls are in the club and they start dancing and their younger selves manifest. It's so moving. And then obviously they've been drinking a lot. And then it's a hard cut, isn't it, to them staring at the house and they're all massively hungover. And it's such a brilliant. Because the music just. It just drops out, doesn't it, at a really special.

26:36

At a really, like, beautiful point.

27:02

Yeah, you just like, get rid of that and then. Oh, my God. Yeah.

27:04

And they're so good at playing hungover, those three. Like, they're. They're. It just cracks me up like, the. The. How much pain they're in.

27:08

I think. I think you've got a great chemistry between those three there.

27:16

It feels like they have a sort of. And had, since the day we sat them down together, a shorthand with each other, you know, which has been amazing. There's such physical comedy comics, too. Like, they're so funny physically, which women don't get a chance to do an awful lot. Like, it was the same in Derry Gears, like, where, you know, women can pull faces and fall over as well, you know, and they're as funny as men when they're doing it. And like, I think for a lot of actresses, particularly actresses of their age, they've often played very tragic serious.

27:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:51

So this is just great. They just. I think they just really relish getting to run around and be ridiculous, too.

27:52

Lisa, do you. Do you feel connected? Well, I'm sure you feel connected to the. The kind of huge growth in production in Northern Ireland and. And in not just comedy, which you do comedy, drama, but also drama set in Northern Ireland like Blue Lights, that when I was at the BBC in the kind of early 2000s, there was a conventional point of view that unless you were making a really dark and serious program about the Troubles and sort of for a mainstream audience, there was no point in making a program about Northern Ireland at all. There was definitely a real prejudice that it wouldn't rate or it wouldn't appeal to a wide audience. Now, you're. Obviously, you've proved otherwise. Well, Derry Girls, you know, proved otherwise with enormous success, but it's also being shown otherwise with. With very strong drama as well. Does that feel like all part of a movement that you're part of, or is it. Is it all coincidental? You know, just random things going on in different parts of the forest, as it were?

27:58

I think it kind of started with the Game of Thrones thing where the crews were getting this incredible training and loads of people were coming here to make incredible shows and films. And then that shift happened where we were making shows about ourselves. And that was, what was, that was really exciting because, you know, for a long time there was a feeling here that. Exactly what you've just said, you know, that like, nobody wants to hear from us unless it's about the worst, the worst point in our history. So, like, I, I think we were ready for when the door creaked open, you know, and it's very exciting. It does feel like you're part of a movement. The thing about loving here and making TV here is we all know each other as well. Like, we literally all know each other very well. So when someone like Louise Gallagher wins a bafta, like, I know her, like, I'm delighted for her. And, and it's like everyone, one person's won's, everyone's won. So it's, it's, it's just incredible at the moment. I really hope it stays this way. I'd love to see more comedy because I think we're a funny place. So I'd love to see a bit more faith and comedy from this part of the world, you know?

28:59

Well, you kind of hope, don't you, that it's not just a, you know, the broadcast is saying, well, we've got Blue Lights, we've got how to get to Heaven, we had Derry Girls. That's kind of, kind of moral licensing that goes on when you do one good thing and then that's it. Because what I'm astounded by, whenever I attend a read through in Northern Ireland, I'm sitting at the read through and I don't know any of the actors, but they're all really good. And when you cast Derry Girls, you know, you know, even the smaller roles, I mean, as someone said in the office today, even the smaller roles in How to get to Heaven, they're brilliantly realized and performed with such confidence and the timing is just brilliant. And I think that's, you know, something that hasn't been, I mean, you've obviously, you and Blue Light have kind of opened the door, but there's a lot more to come from that.

30:14

There is, yeah. And a lot more genres, I think, you know, like, a lot more there's going to, I think the Great Northern Irish Horror has still, that, you know, still has to be made, you know, and someone's gonna do that. And romantic comedy do you know, like, I, I, I'm just waiting for all these things to. But I do think that thing about the actors is so true. And I think that's like, I was talking to someone was asking about the smaller roles and how to get to heaven when I was doing the press. Doing the press for the show. And that comes from. As well we know each other and say, right, so I know he's gonna nail that, like, because I've done theater with them or I've worked with them, or there's just this real community here, which is our strength is the other thing. You know, there's strength in being a small place, which I love.

31:02

And do you think the broadcasters also kind of should share some of the credit for this? Because over the last 20 years or so, broadcasters have put such an emphasis on production in the nations and regions. The BBC, Channel 4 being the most obvious examples this. And said, you know, there's. It's an element of. Of. Of quite deliberately engineering it so that less is made in London and more is made in different parts of the country. Does it. Did you. Did you feel the effects of that when you were kind of making your way? Because it's interesting that you say you came over to London to sort of make your way in theater in the television industry, but. Yeah, now that you're a big, big figure in the television industry, you're back in Belfast.

31:52

Yeah, I mean, that's. That was weird. But like, when I was. When I was coming to London, I was. Or when I first came to London. Sorry, I was writing a lot of English stuff. You know, I was writing on English writing English characters. And I. People used to say about my dialogue, God, so it's such a. She's got such a different way of writing dialogue. And I think I was just writing Northern Irish dialogue for English voices. But then. Then at one point, me and my husband were coming back to Belfast for work all the time. We made two shows on the Boyne, like the Deceived and Derri Gears, which fall into Belfast. And we just sort of had this moment where we're like, this is the wrong way round. Do you know why are we living in London? Only spent the weekend with your kids then. So, like, yeah, I've definitely seen that shift in real time. But I think, like, of course there was. There needed to be a push for that or all the stories would have been so boring. Do you know what I mean? Like, all these regional stories are great and new and even in drama as well, that had to happen.

32:37

Lisa, you mentioned Game of Thrones earlier on. Did they have asked you to write for Game of Thrones? No. Why not? I thought Game of Thrones was one of those, to be honest. It could have done with a few more jokes.

33:40

Yeah, I would have, yeah. Could you imagine me writing that? Like how the tone shift.

33:54

I think there was some funny stuff in Game of Thrones, but it was a lot of blood and murder and, and all that.

33:58

I mean that's, that I could not write that. Like a lot of admiration for people that can. That. That's not.

34:03

Yeah, but you, you mentioned romantic comedy and you mentioned horror and so on and these things and you know, and one thing you've done that some writers don't do at all, you've written, you might say an era defining sitcom in Derry Girls. And with how to Get Heaven From Belfast, you've moved on already to another genre and another brilliant, brilliant success. Some people find the big success that they write that, you know, kind of lands them on the map, hangs around them like a, you know, very hard to, very hard to move on from at all. But so do you yourself, you know, think, well, I'm going to move on to slightly different genres like romantic comedy or horror. And by the way, if you do, you don't need to take them all to Hat Trick. I just wanted to, I just want to get that into the conversation at some point. It's often a good idea to vary the production companies that you work with. Maybe a little bit of different, of air breathing around, you know, I'll have

34:09

to have you killed, Peter.

35:01

I think it's just like important like I think sometimes my, what's the word? Not sometimes I'm quite like naive, you know, and quite like I always say, like, I think maybe why I write Teenage Gears well is because I just still in my soul I am a teenage girl, you know, that is pretending to be a grown up. But I just think I have to just write, keep writing. I don't think too much about what I've done. I just want to do the next thing. And I think if I thought about it, maybe you could get crippled by like, oh, it needs to be, it needs to land the way Derry Gears does. You know, I just don't really think like that until the thing's coming out and then I get nervous. But I just try and write what I'd. What interests me or what I would want to watch or find funny and not overthink it.

35:03

Well, I think you've done us all a favor by, you know, because I've, you know, people, you know, when people watch a show and they come and they try and overanalyze it, you know, and, and writers get that all the time. Don't they? About, well, you know, were you trying to do this?

35:52

And yeah.

36:04

Is it an allegory for that? But, you know, the fact that you've. And I said this to Tom Lyons, who's the head of drama at Netflix, as you said, was. Been fantastic on the whole thing.

36:05

Yeah.

36:16

And very insightful. And I said, I don't know, I don't want to know their name, but think of the most serious minded person in your drama commissioning team. He went, yeah, okay. I said, did they like how to get to Heaven from Belfast? They said, yeah, they loved it. I said, that's great, because that's changing minds. Because a lot of drama people, it's not their fault, but they're raised, they're formed in a world where jokes can feel like it's cheapening a scene.

36:16

Oh, totally.

36:42

And my argument's always, no jokes will enhance the drama. If you've got something tragic followed by something highly comic, it doesn't rob the tragedy, it just makes it more human completely.

36:44

And it's so much more truthful. It's how life is. And I used to. This used to be my huge frustration when I started because I was a playwright and you could do both those things at the same time. And I find that my jokes were always taken out of stuff and because it was slow and there was no room for the jokes. And I used to always think, well, find room. Because Russell TD Davis's Queer As Folk was the first thing I saw on TV where I was like, that's a tone that I really like. It's really, really funny, really political, great drama. You know, he's doing everything at once and it's like, it can be done. Do you know? But, but I, I definitely find when I started in TV that the jokes suffered and they didn't think about, you know, you need someone that can direct comedy as well. And drama do you know, like, you need to give it proper thought.

36:54

But traditionally you, you could argue that television broadcasters have made it more difficult for themselves over many, many years by having drama department in one corner of the building and a comedy department and the other. And you don't get that in theater, obviously. You don't turn up at the National Theater and say, can I talk to the comedy people or the drama people? You don't get it in film studios, you don't get it in Hollywood.

37:44

I think fewer people understand comedy too. It's really hard to find great people because people say about finding the comedy writers, it's tricky. Finding people can work with Comedy writers is really tricky. I think less people understand it instinctively and, and people get so angry if that doesn't make, you know, if something is supposed to be a comedy and doesn't make you laugh, like they get angry with you in a way that if something's, you know, a drama.

38:08

Oh, they, they're completely offended.

38:34

Yeah. If it's a drama that doesn't make you cry, nobody gives a. Like. Yeah.

38:35

But yeah, because the issues were good, you know, or the lighting was nice.

38:39

So, Lisa, before we let go, and we must let you go because you've been so generous with the time, what's next? What have you got coming up?

38:43

I mean, I would love to do more of, of how to get to Heaven if the, if anybody wanted it. And I'm, I'm working on something I'm not allowed to really talk much about except that it's, I will say it's a mockumentary style comedy thing, which I've always wanted to do. And then, yeah, I'm just like thinking about maybe other mad things I might have. Have a crack at. Maybe a film. I don't know. I'll just. And I also just really want to have a break for a couple of weeks.

38:49

Yes. I was gonna say maybe a break is the next thing.

39:17

Yeah.

39:20

Well, let's help. Let's help you on your way by, by letting you go so you can start your break right now.

39:20

Thanks, Lisa.

39:25

Thank you very much indeed.

39:25

Thank you so much.

39:27

That's all for this week. Huge thanks to Lisa for being with us and thank you for listening. Any questions you want to ask about the world of television, send them our way. We'd love to hear from, from you.

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39:41

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39:44

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39:51

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