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With this writer and this cast, it looks as if the BBC has its eyes firmly set on next year’s Bafta TV Awards. In fact, when Bean and Friel took to the Festival Hall at the weekend to present a prize (see above), one could have been forgiven for thinking that this was something of a rehearsal.
It's another hard-hitting drama from one of Britain's most respected writers: Jimmy McGovern's new six-part series Broken (BBC One) follows a maverick priest, played by Sean Bean, as he tries to help his troubled flock in a working class northern town.We spoke to McGovern - whose catalogue of work includes Cracker, The Street, The Accused and Hillsborough - about his complex relationship with Catholicism, the writing process and what he really thinks about Sean Bean.Where do you write your scripts?In a hut. I spent Ł30,000 on a hut thinking it was all tax-free but you can't claim on a writer's hut - I only found out when I handed the receipts in! They said I should have put it on wheels!It's an emotional watch - what was it like to write?Words are rungs on an emotional ladder. I've been in floods [writing this]. You can't expect an actor to cry unless you cry writing it. There's a scene where a footballer has to be substituted after a player is chased off the pitch by three men wielding guns.That was based on a true story heard from a priest - he had to revitalise a football team and that was one of the things that actually happened. It's not about "broken Britain". Broken Britain? That was the last thing on my mind. It's about broken humanity. It's about broken people. But you're at your most powerful when you're at your weakest. There is still a sense of community and strength.On working with Sean Bean again (who won an international Emmy for his role in The Accused). Sean Bean was my wildest dream. He's a great actor, one of our finest actors ever. But the penalty of getting Sean Bean is you've got to make use of Sean Bean! (They ended up building the script around him). Sean's big worry was he was being passive at times, like in the confessional scenes. The confessional is not passive though - the penitent goes in there in despair, the priest takes it all on and the penitent goes out a bit lighter. [The priest] is taking on the the sin and easing the burden. The best priests keep their mouth shut and their ears open.On his experience of Catholicism as a child.Catholic teaching in the the 1950s and 1960s was harmful. It's a faith that teaches you that the only decent woman that ever lived was the Virgin Mary, who never had sex with a man - then it tells you to go forth and multiply, when everything you've been told is that sex is filthy. As a teenager, you're tortured, it's horrendous. And the only thing worse than being a practising heterosexual in a Catholic church is to be a practising homosexual. They just throw up their hands in horror. It [the Catholic Church] sent out twisted people like me. Absolutely twisted. We were totally screwed up.Anybody who went to a Catholic school in the late 50s/early 60s had direct experience of perverts and paedophiles. I had one and I named him and everybody knew who he was. His life could have taken a very different turn.I did feel I was called [to the priesthood] at one point, I seriously considered it... but I'd have been a terrible priest.McGovern's not a fan of pomp and ceremony in church.The gowns in the upper chamber? What's that got to do with a skint, poverty-stricken man in rags dying on a cross? It's ridiculous.Liverpudlian priests rock.We have the best priests in Liverpool, the best in the world. It's not bells and smells, it's getting down and dirty with the people, caring for alcoholics, the poor, the destitute, the homeless, fighting against bureaucracy and hypocrisy. We MIGHT get another series. Series two? I think Sean wants to move on but I'm hoping the BBC will agree to allow me to do another thing about a priest, i.e. Broken 2. We'll see. Episode one of Broken airs on BBC One at 9pm on Tuesday 23 May.
Quote With this writer and this cast, it looks as if the BBC has its eyes firmly set on next year’s Bafta TV Awards. In fact, when Bean and Friel took to the Festival Hall at the weekend to present a prize (see above), one could have been forgiven for thinking that this was something of a rehearsal. http://www.whollwin.com/news/16th-may-2017/sean-bean-and-anna-friel-star-in-new-bbc-drama.php
I watched the trailer for Broken. Living here on the other side of the big pond I am so sad that it highly probable I will never have the opportunity to watch the series
6 days to go until #Broken #BBCOne
Tonight we're at The Lowry for the premier of Broken with Royal Television Society and LA Productions! - Jo & Alice 🙌
a sideways look at my #JimmyMcGovern #Broken interview - this week's @RadioTimes
Jimmy McGovern is angry. He’s angry that in Britain in 2017, vulnerable people can be “sanctioned” by the welfare state for 13 weeks. He’s angry that the poorest are suffering. And he’s angry that some people still can’t afford to feed their families. These issues are at the heart of Broken, the new drama McGovern, responsible for landmark shows like Cracker and The Lakes, has written for BBC One. The six-part series stars Sean Bean as Catholic priest Father Michael Kerrigan, and Anna Friel as Christina Fitzsimmons – a single mother of three. The characters live in a small, unspecified Northern parish which is ravaged by poverty. In Friel’s character, McGovern explores how the welfare state can fail a person so spectacularly. When she loses her job, she’s unable to claim benefits or receive an emergency loan. It forces her to make a drastic choice to feed her family – which Father Michael observes with discomfort. Sean Bean’s character, Father Michael, knows Christina’s family through the local church. While the family take solace in the routines of the parish, he becomes less of a preacher and more of a social worker. “You can imagine that a priest wouldn’t last long in a city like Liverpool if all they did was preach.”“Sin is not particularly evil,” he says, “but poverty and despair – they’re evil. They’re what you campaign against as a priest.” Even still, there’s an element of pageantry and wealth in the church that doesn’t sit right with him. You can see it in Broken, when the parents try to “outdo” one another with the most spectacular First Holy Communion dresses. “It’s always been there with First Holy Communion,” he says. “They all want the kids to look good. I think it’s said at some point that the poorer the family, the more they want their daughter to be a princess for the day.”As for the casting, Anna Friel was a pretty sure thing to play Christina in Broken. But getting Sean Bean to play the priest was a long shot. “We wanted both of them. I knew we might get Anna because she’s very good at keeping her ear close to the ground. I think getting Anna was probably easier. “Getting Sean I thought would be impossible.”“I remember at the BBC – the person we were working to said, ‘everybody promises me Sean Bean and nobody ever delivers’. But then we did get Sean, and it was great.” The script was fleshed out upon casting, explains McGovern, because “we then had to develop the priest a lot more”. “A lot of what I had written went in the bin and we started again,” he adds. What’s left is an ambitious story of poverty, trust, and the place of faith in an everyday, working class community. As complex as the story is, McGovern sums it up neatly. “There’s a question that informs this entire narrative – is faith relevant today?” Broken attempts to provide an answer. But as with so many of the issues the show brings up, there’s nothing simple about it. Broken starts on BBC One on Tuesday 23 May, 9pm
Read in this week's Universe the story behind - #SeanBean @annafriel who star in 6-part #JimmyMcGovern drama #Broken @BBCOne
4 days to go until #Broken #BBCOne
My interview with Jimmy McGovern. His new drama Broken will move parish if there's a series two - without Sean Bean http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/jimmy-mcgovern/5118005.article?blocktitle=Features&contentID=43659 …
3 days to go until #Broken #BBCOne
Guess who? 👀Sean Bean stars in our brand new six-part drama #Broken. Starts Tuesday at 9pm on #BBCOne. #BTS #BehindTheScenes #PureDrama
Father Michael Kerrigan (Sean Bean) is a good man in an increasingly bad world. He’s a Catholic priest at the heart of a parish in the North West.The community has its fair share of social problems, from deprivation to addiction.Father Michael is suffering too. Bad memories from his past haunt him as he says Mass. His first line in this six-part drama is: ‘Please God, not this time.’As he battles his own demons, Father Michael is also trying to heal his broken flock, played by a stellar cast. In the first episode, Christina (Anna Friel), a single mother of three, goes to desperate lengths to get enough money to feed her children and pay for her daughter’s Communion dress. When she confesses her crime to Michael, he doesn’t judge her – ‘I’m not the Virgin Mary’s biggest fan,’ he admits – but tries to save her from the serious consequences.The series also tells the moving story of Helen (Muna Otaru) and her mentally ill son Vernon (Jerome Holder). And there’s gambling addict Roz Demichelis (Paula Malcomson who was in Ray Donovan). Created by Jimmy McGovern– who wrote Brookside, Cracker, Hillsborough and last year’s Reg – it’s about the realities of ordinary life and a community torn apart by poverty.‘It doesn’t pull its punches and it’s not for everybody, but if you stay with it then it is uplifting,’ says Jimmy. ‘It’s about a man who believes he has not lived a worthwhile life and yet who learns he has. It’s about reconciliation, redemption and hope.’Broken is on Tue 9pm BBC1
#SeanBean plays Father Michael, a maverick priest presiding over his tight-knit Northern parish, in our BBC drama #Broken. On air 23/5/17
2 days to go until #Broken #BBCOne
Tuesday 23 MayBrokenBBC One, 9.00pmJimmy McGovern’s latest six-part drama is a howl of frustration on behalf of those families – plenty of them hard-working – who find themselves in desperate cycles of debt. “I don’t know anyone who isn’t skint,” says single mother Christina (Anna Friel). The focal points of the drama are Christina and Sean Bean’s gentle yet troubled Father Michael Kerrigan: two people trying their best in near-impossible circumstances. Their paths cross when Christina’s attendance at Father Michael’s church for her daughter’s Holy Communion leads indirectly to getting sacked from her job at the local betting shop.When her life begins to spiral out of control, she turns to the priest for help. Broken is an unsentimental appraisal of working-class culture and community in the North – celebrating its importance and recognising its limitations in a society where the state’s safety net is fraying badly. In Friel and Bean, it has two actors in rewarding new chapters in their careers, while McGovern is at something close to his best, making his points without hammering you over the head, and leavening the growing tragedy with well-judged humour. Broken is also, sadly, a drama for our times.
1 day to go until #Broken #BBCOne
@BBCLancashire talking to former Bpl-based Fr Denis Blackledge on helping Sean Bean in BBC Broken. #compassion #brokenness #jimmymcgovern
Sean Bean plays against type beautifully as Father Michael Kerrigan, a sad, softly spoken Catholic priest haunted by flashbacks to his childhood. Bean is known for action roles, but here is all gentleness and compassion as a man who, for instance, knows the strain a first communion service and its outfits can put on parishioners: “People are taking on years of debt for a ceremony lasting less than an hour,” he sighs.One of those people is Christina Fitzsimmons (Anna Friel), the other focus of the drama, a skint single mother who is losing her bearings. In a terrific scene she is late for her job at a betting shop and ends up having a full-on fist-fight with her female boss – while a gambler ignores them and plugs away at his fruit machine. It’s the start of a desperate spiral for Christina, all deftly drawn by the best writer around for this kind of thing – Jimmy McGovern.SummaryNew series. Father Michael Kerrigan advises a hard-up parishioner struggling to feed her family while, with his mother dying, he begins to experience worrying flashbacks of his traumatic childhood. Jimmy McGovern drama, starring Sean Bean and Anna Friel.
Series 1 Episode 1 of 6 Catholic priest Father Michael Kerrigan presides over a large parish on the outskirts of a major city in northern England, a well-respected figure throughout the local community.Father Michael reaches out to a troubled parishioner, a single mother-of-three, who is badly struggling for money after a series of unfortunate events - but she rejects his attempts to help. The woman's mother then dies suddenly.Father Michael has to cope with his own frail mother, living 60 miles away, and as he deals with the effects of his own harsh, working-class upbringing and reflects on the conflicts within society at large, he questions how much of an impact he can really have on the ever-evolving spiritual landscape of modern-day Britain.
Sean Bean stars as Father Michael Kerrigan, a Catholic priest presiding over a Northern urban parish, in Jimmy McGovern’s new landmark six-part drama.Modern, maverick, and reassuringly flawed, Father Michael is a man who must be confidante, counsellor and confessor to a community struggling to reconcile its beliefs with the realities of daily life in contemporary Britain.After mass, Father Michael meets Christina Fitzsimmons (Anna Friel), a mother of three who works at the local betting shop, and is saving money for her daughter's First Communion. But when her attendance in Church sparks an unfortunate chain of events, she is left with no way to feed her children and keep a roof over their heads. Pushed to the edge when tragedy strikes, Christina makes a desperate plan to alleviate her situation. Will she go through with it, or can Father Michael - suspicious that all may not be as it seems - offer the family a lifeline?Elsewhere, Father Michael visits his mother and brothers, sparking memories of his childhood, and revealing that he is a man with secret struggles of his own.
Friel is very good, as always. But Bean’s performance, understated, occasionally baffled, profoundly caring, is revelatory. “People know Sean’s a good actor,” says McGovern. “But I know he’s a great actor.”Did he have Bean in mind when he wrote it? “I wanted Sean all along, but I didn’t believe we would get him. It would have been much more straightforward if we hadn’t, because then each episode would be story of the week, with the parish as a sort of precinct, and the priest in the middle of that precinct. When we got Sean Bean, we then had to do a lot more of the development of Father Kerrigan. It became tougher, but much more rewarding to write.”
Father Michael is the local parish priest who's trying to find a place for the church in the modern world, help his parishioners, and battle the demons of his past - all at the same timeFrom Sharpe to Game of Thrones’ Eddard Stark, James Bond’s Alec Trevelyan to Lord of The Rings' Boromir, Sean Bean's back catalogue of roles (and screen deaths) is rather extensive. Most recently he's been managing to stay alive on screen though, in The Frankenstein Chronicles on ITV Encore. And he has previously worked with McGovern, playing teacher Tracie Tremarco in BBC drama Accused.Bean shares the role of Michael with Brief Encounters star Fin Campbell (who plays Michael when he's 10) and Sam Rintoul (who plays the teenage Michael).
It takes a great leap of faith for a priest to stand in the wings watching a former Bond villain celebrating Mass and believe it. But after coaching actor Sean Bean in his latest starring part in the BBC drama Broken, Fr Denis Blackledge admits it was so real it reduced him to tears. Renowned for his all- action roles in cinema and TV – more than 20 of his screen characters have come to a grisly end - hard man Bean was hardly a shoe-in for the part of Fr Michael Kerrigan. Yet Fr Denis, who as Broken’s religious consultant was his mentor throughout filming, confessed the Yorkshireman turned out just perfect for the part. “I watched him grow into the role,” said the one-time priest at St Wilfrid’s in Preston. “Sean will cope with anything as long as it is instructed.”
Jimmy McGovern’s Broken is a thought-provoking and often haunting tale of a Catholic priest and the people in his Northern community, but the show’s theme tune makes almost as much of an impact as the story. But what is the Broken theme tune? And who’s singing it?Well, the show’s opening theme is a Randy Newman song by the name of I Think It’s Going to Rain Today. Numerous artists, from Joe Cocker to UB40, Katie Melua to David Grey, Norah Jones to Bette Midler and even Tom Odell, have covered it countless times throughout the years.The version we hear in Broken is performed by Nina Simone.What’s the song that plays over the closing titles in Broken?It turns out the show’s theme tune isn’t the only track worth listening to. As the episode ends and the titles begin to roll a new composition written especially for the series begins to play.The song is called Broken, and it’s written and performed by none other than The Kinks’ Ray Davies.
At a screening of the first episode of Broken, we were given a stern warning against revealing too much of a heartbreaking plot, but suffice to say Bean’s pitch-perfect Fr Michael has his own demons as, every day without fail, he emerges from his lonely presbytery, craggy-faced and badly shaven, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the poor, the disenfranchised and the plain desperate among his dwindling congregation, people who have only him to rely on.Kerrigan is, McGovern emphasises, for the avoidance of doubt, “a smashing priest”. But doubt is woven into every detail of the episode I watched. Vocation is, the writer agrees, not for wimps. “There is the sheer muscularity required to function as a priest in a poor parish versus all the ethereal, abstract stuff, the bells and the smells.”The moment that brought tears to my eyes was when Fr Michael, ushered into a room of unspeakable family tragedy, insists on lighting a candle to symbolise Christ’s presence in this scene of desolation. Does he cry, I wonder, as he writes in his shed? “You can’t expect an actor to cry unless you cry when you write the words,” he answers. “Words are the rungs up an emotional ladder.”
*New on our blog* Jimmy McGovern on his new drama #Broken for @BBCOne starring Sean Bean, including video interview http://bbc.in/2rP1HCF
Only two days to go until the first episode of #Broken - 9pm on Tuesday 30 May #BBCOne
Don’t miss #Broken, tomorrow on #BBCOne at 9pm
Our Artist of the Month Ray Davies has recorded a new single for the BBC.‘Broken’ was written and recorded exclusively for the hotly anticipated new BBC One drama of the same name, starring Sean Bean as Catholic priest Father Michael Kerrigan.The track is every bit the classic recording you’d expect from the legendary Ray Davies, and an outstanding, surprise addition to his remarkable catalogue.Order here.Broken’ was written by Jimmy McGovern and also stars Anna Friel and Adrian Dunbar. It airs weekly from Tuesday 30th May, with the concluding part going out on Tuesday 4th July.
Sean Bean is counsellor, confidante and confessor in our brand new drama #Broken. Starts tonight. 9pm. #BBCOne #BTS #BehindTheScenes #SeanBean #PureDrama
Catholic priest Father Michael Kerrigan presides over a large parish on the outskirts of a major city in northern England, a well-respected figure throughout the local community.Father Michael reaches out to a troubled parishioner, a single mother-of-three, who is badly struggling for money after a series of unfortunate events - but she rejects his attempts to help. The woman's mother then dies suddenly.Father Michael has to cope with his own frail mother, living 60 miles away, and as he deals with the effects of his own harsh, working-class upbringing and reflects on the conflicts within society at large, he questions how much of an impact he can really have on the ever-evolving spiritual landscape of modern-day Britain.
Broken 9pm, BBC1 This new Jimmy McGovern drama (held over from last week) promises to be an essential exploration of desperate lives on the British breadline. In tonight’s opener, spiky but beleaguered Christina Fitzsimmons (Anna Friel) reaches the end of her financial and emotional tether. Sean Bean’s sad-eyed cleric Father Michael Kerrigan tries to help but finds a woman unable to accept assistance. The performances are superb, the writing exemplary, the sense of looming catastrophe unavoidable.
Next week in #JimmyMcGovern's #Broken: A desperate gambler and a mentally-ill youth present dilemmas for Father Michael #SeanBean @BBCOne