‘Dilemmas don’t get any harder than this’: BBC’s Best Interest viewers are left in floods of tears as they praise Sharon Horgan’s ‘heartbreaking’ performance as a mother fighting to keep her disabled daughter alive
- Viewers of BBC’s newest drama Best Interest were left in floods of tears
- Read more: Reality of life for the parents of a severely disabled child
Viewers of BBC’s Best Interest were left in floods of tears last night as they praised Sharon Horgan for her ‘heartbreaking’ performance in the new drama.
The series, written by His Dark Materials’ Jack Thorne, documents a couple’s struggle as they fight to keep their daughter Marnie, who suffers from congenital muscular dystrophy alive after doctors tell them it is in her best interests to be allowed to die.
Niamh Moriarty, who has a form of cerebral palsy called spastic diplegia, appears as Marnie in the new four-part drama alongside Sharon and Michael Sheen.
The story follows the family as they go through the difficult legal process and struggle to come to grips with the monumental decision.
The first episode aired last night, with viewers left devastated by scenes in the drama, with one writing: ‘God that was harrowing, powerful and powerfully acted. Wow.’
Viewers of BBC’s Best Interest were left in floods of tears last night as they praised Sharon Horgan for her ‘heartbreaking’ performance in the new drama
The series documents a couple’s struggle as they fight to keep their daughter Marnie, who suffers from congenital muscular dystrophy alive after doctors tell them it is in her best interests to be allowed to die
Another commented: ‘Just watched that Best Interests on BBC1 there and it was brilliant.
‘Sad but brilliant. Hard not to be though with that cast, Sheen and Horgan terrific as always.’
A third wrote: ‘Best Interests has had me in tears already. Poor Marnie, she’s been through so much in her short life.
‘My heart breaks for her parents and sister sat helpless watching.’
A fourth added: ‘Well Best Interests on BBC1 was a tough watch. Fantastic acting and a slowly revealing plot involving the whole family battling through a hideous condition.
‘It’s a lose-lose situation.’
A fifth said: ‘Dilemmas don’t come any heartbreakingly harder than this. A powerful hard watch beautifully executed by one and all right across the board.’
In the show, Sheen and Horgan play married couple Nicci and Andrew. They have two daughters – Katie, played by Conversation With Friends’ Alison Oliver, and Marnie, played by Moriarty.
The first episode aired last night, with viewers left devastated by scenes in the drama (pictured)
Muscular dystrophy
The muscular dystrophies (MD) are a group of inherited genetic conditions that gradually cause the muscles to weaken, leading to an increasing level of disability.
MD is a progressive condition, which means it gets worse over time. It often begins by affecting a particular group of muscles, before affecting the muscles more widely.
Some types of MD eventually affect the heart or the muscles used for breathing, at which point the condition becomes life-threatening.
There’s no cure for MD, but treatment can help to manage many of the symptoms.
The series explores the rights of children and the UK’s disabled community as it follows the married couple as they are forced to make impossible choices.
Within moments of the drama starting, the couple can be seen returning from a rare weekend away to meet with Marnie’s carers.
But shortly after they return, they are forced to call emergency care for Marnie as they rush to hospital.
Flashbacks show Nicci and Andrew learning their daughter has muscular dystrophy, and learning more about what it means for her future.
Breaking the news that their daughter had the incurable condition, the doctor tells them that a ‘further deterioration seems likely, while she’s unlikely to be able to walk unaided and will see further deterioration to key organs.
‘I think you should prepare yourself than Marnie’s life will not be a full one.’
He continued: ‘There are many beautiful stories in this life. Marnie’s life is going to be different. You will find such joy if you adapt to that difference.’
Meanwhile in present day, the couple blame themselves for her sudden decline in health.
The series explores the rights of children and the UK’s disabled community as it follows the married couple as they are forced to make impossible choices
Andrew tells Nicci: ‘Going away…it didn’t cause this. We’ve been here before, it’ll be fine.’
Writer Jack Thorne makes their situation still more impossible with another euphemism, as one more mealy-mouthed doctor informs them Marnie may require ‘palliative care’.
Following a heart attack, she is unconscious and breathing through tubes, with the doctor telling the family: ‘Each time [this happens] she gets a little sicker and she never gets back to where she was before.
‘The last year has been extremely tough.’
‘We have to question the costs of that, whether it is right to keep treating her in this way.’
Fiery Nicci grasps the meaning before her mild-mannered husband: ‘She’s saying that she wants her to die.
‘The hospital wants my daughter to die, and I believe she should live.
‘They don’t get to decide what to do — she is our child.’
Nicci wants every possible intervention for her daughter, including experimental treatments discovered on the internet.
The mother-of-two tells doctors: ‘She still laughs, she still loves.’
However the medical team claim ongoing intervention isn’t in Marnie’s ‘best interests’, saying she is ‘decreasing rapidly’, though there’s a suspicion it’s really a question of money.
Meanwhile tensions arise between Nicci and Andrew about how best to care for their daughter, with the mother telling her husband: ‘Promise me you’ll fight for her.’
The dilemma is summed up by Marnie’s big sister, Katie, who said: ‘How can you let someone go who still laughs?’
While Sharon said the emotional script for Best Interests, written by disability rights activist Jack, ‘broke’ her when she first read it.
She added: ‘Best Interests’ broke me when I first read the script and then again after talking with Jack about it.
While Sharon said the emotional script for Best Interests, written by disability rights activist Jack, ‘broke’ her when she first read it
‘COVID seems to have shone a closer light on the desperate inequalities that exist for our disabled community so this felt very timely.’
Previously speaking of the project, Michael said: ‘Jack Thorne is such an extraordinary writer and he has approached this incredibly important and urgent subject with humanity, honesty and humor.’
Moriarty, who plays Marnie, previously said of the role: ‘I didn’t think I would ever get the opportunity to prove myself and my talents’ and called on those casting for disabled parts to use disabled actors.
She told the Irish Independent: ‘I hope that they [young people] 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.’
The teen actor, who was raised in Killiney, County Dublin, said it was hugely important to her to get the character’s ‘physicalities’ right.
She decided to try acting aged ten after realising her friends were beginning to take up physical hobbies such as Gaelic football that she couldn’t get involved with, saying: ‘I enrolled in our local drama school. And from there, I started to realise that acting was something that a person could do as a job’.
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