Sally Wainwright

You're constantly thinking about patterns and connections and how things work.

The structure of telling stories is so complex, if you want to get it right, which I always want to do.

So you start to worry that, oh, well, if this isn't working anymore, what are we going to do?

The other big thing that struck me as I was starting to develop the show more was something I started to experience, which

was quite shocking was this feeling that all the joy had gone out of life and losing motivation to do anything.

And it's a real shock when that kicks in.

And if I'd known that was part of the menopause, how much happier I would have been.

But I didn't.

I just thought it was me being miserable and depressive.

And the problem is when you get into that, you don't want to tell your friends.

You don't want to talk to your friends because you don't want to be the miserable one.

It was offloading all the time.

So you kind of keep it to yourself.

So it seemed to me that I needed, it was my own therapy to be able to write about this.

So the character of Beth, who Joanna Scanlon plays beautifully.

So beautiful.

It's really personal.

That kind of is as sort of autobiographical as I've ever been.

And I'm not saying I was suicidal in the way that she is when the show opens, but I've certainly been low where I've thought about nobody'd notice if I wasn't here.

Yeah.