Laura Derbyshire and Jamie Prince meet at a sixth-form party in Edinburgh. She’s 18, he’s 16, both drunk, and they wake up strangers. Six weeks later Laura realises she’s pregnant; the note Jamie left with his number is still in her jeans. Across three short BBC Three series, writer Chris Reddy tracks the months before and after the birth of their daughter Emily, never letting the tone slide into either saccharine or grim. Laura’s middle-class parents, Janet and Alan, want the baby adopted; Jamie’s working-class mum and dad, Sandra and Keith, push for marriage. Both sets of parents are more frightened than their children, who muddle through antenatal classes, part-time jobs and university applications while arguing over whose turn it is to buy nappies.
The show’s strength is its refusal to treat Edinburgh as generic Britain. Exterior scenes were shot in Corstorphine parish church, The Grange and the city’s actual maternity hospital, giving the domestic plot a precise northern light. Scarlett Alice Johnson plays Laura with defensive wit, arms folded like body armour, while Sean Michael Verey lets Jamie’s cockiness drain away in real time. Supporting characters stay sharp: Emer Kenny’s Danielle dispenses advice she never follows, Ben Crompton’s Keith sells illegal meat out of a garage freezer, and Yasmin Paige’s Beth quietly realises she is the only one with an exit plan.
BBC Three commissioned a second series before the first episode aired, then cancelled any further run after the third batch of six episodes dropped in March 2014. Nineteen half-hours, one hour-long special, and the story stops exactly where it should: two teenagers who barely know each other staring at a toddler who already recognises their separate voices.
Production Details
BBC Three / 3 Seasons / 19 Episodes / 2012
Created by: Chris Reddy
Writer(s): Chris Reddy
Producer(s): Lucy Robinson
Main Cast
Scarlett Alice Johnson as Laura Derbyshire
Sean Verey as Jamie Prince
Emer Kenny as Danielle Reeves
Ben Crompton as Keith Prince
Bronagh Gallagher as Sandra Prince
Yasmin Paige as
Miranda Hennessy as Isabel
Zina Badran as Hannah
Sara Stewart as
