The Key
A major new drama from BBC Scotland
The Key is a sweeping and ambitious three-part
drama which re-unites the Bafta Award-winning
team of writer Donna Franceschild and director
David Blair, and stars Dawn Steele, Ronni Ancona,
Frances Grey,Ann Louise Ross and June Watson.
The drama recounts the story of the last century
through the eyes of one family, encompassing three
generations of a passionate Clydeside clan, headed
by Mary Corrigan (Dawn Steele and later June
Watson).
Barbara McKissack, BBC Scotland’s Head of Drama
and executive producer on The Key says:“Donna
Franceschild has written an immensely rich and
ambitious drama which brings to life both the
compelling struggle of the Scottish labour
movement and an epic family tale. At its heart
The Key is a very human story. It’s about three
generations of a family struggling to make the best
of their lives in very difficult circumstances.That’s
something we can all relate to.”
A Little Bird production in association with Making
Waves, The Key also features Stephen McCole,
Kevin McKidd, John Sessions, Ewan Stewart and Ken
Stott.The drama draws upon many of the key
moments of British political history during the 20th
century, ranging from Bloody Friday in 1919, when
thousands of workers gathered in Glasgow to
demand a 40-hour week and were set upon by
mounted police, to the brutal chaos of the miners’
strike demonstration at Orgreave in 1984.
McKissack continues:“Mary’s life mirrors the
century.Without making The Key sound like an
exclusively women’s piece, which it definitely isn’t,
there are very strong female characters at the core
of the drama.Viewed through the prism of Mary
and her family, The Key reflects on the human
impact of cataclysmic social and political changes.”
Franceschild, who made her name with such
acclaimed work as Donovan Quick, Eureka Street,
A Mug’s Game and Takin’ Over The Asylum, outlines
her inspiration for the series: “I was fascinated by
the idea that on every life that has ever been lived
is written the history of their time and their
generation’s struggle.We tend to forget that so
much we now take for granted – votes for women,
the abolition of child labour, health and safety
legislation at work – was hard fought for and won.”
Producer Sue Austen, who also worked with both
Blair and Franceschild on the film Donovan Quick,
says: “This is a wonderfully crafted story which,
through the lives of an ordinary family, charts the
rise of the trade union movement in the early part
of the 20th century, the destruction of the unions
in the Eighties and the birth of New Labour in
the Nineties.”
“The Key happens to be set on Clydeside,” Austen
adds, “but it could just as easily have been set in
Liverpool, Manchester or any industrial city.The
same stories happened to millions of people. In the
end, it’s a wonderfully uplifting human saga with
resonance for every family.”
“Although I lead a very different life from my
mother and grandmother, there are lots of strands
connecting us,” continues Franceschild. “I’m angry
that current events are always interpreted as if we
have no history.The past explains how we got here.
We have to understand it in order to know where
we’re going.”
Director David Blair says: “It’s very heartening that
we can take on these huge, ambitious projects.
Donna has effortlessly created a genuinely complex
structure in which she manages to interweave five
different periods. She shows the parallels and
echoes that resonate throughout the century.
“She has a great understanding of humanity. I’ve
worked with Donna since 1992, so our relationship
is almost telepathic now. It’s been such a fruitful
partnership because she’s always writing about
subjects I’m really interested in.You know there’ll
always be soul in the piece.
“I gave every period its own texture. So I filmed
1915 to 1919 in black and white, 1945 in muted
colours and the Seventies with a warmer, fuller
look. Every scene takes the viewer into a
specific period.”
“It is passionate and thought-provoking, and
exemplifies single-voice drama at its very best,”
concludes McKissack.“From Takin' Over The Asylum,
through A Mug's Game and Donovan Quick, the BBC
has always been a proud champion of Donna’s
unique vision.”
The Key, a BBC Scotland production for BBC Two,
from the Bafta Award-winning team of writer
Donna Franceschild and David Blair, presents a
century’s history from the perspective of those
who have experienced it at the sharp end.
Main cast
Mary
Older Mary
Duncan
Danny
Maggie
Helen
Jessie
Joe
Billy
Spencer
Katherine
Writer
Producer
Director
Costume Designer
Make-Up Designer
Film Editor
Director of Photography
Production Designer
Music Composed by
Executive Producers
Dawn Steele
June Watson
Kevin McKidd
Stephen McCole
Ronni Ancona
Ann Louise Ross
Frances Grey
Ewan Stewart
Ken Stott
John Sessions
Katy Murphy
Donna Franceschild
Sue Austen
David Blair
James Keast
Jane Walker
Frances Parker
Nigel Willoughby
Andy Harris
Anne Dudley
Jonathan Cavendish (Little Bird)
Donna Franceschild (Making Waves)
Pippa Harris (BBC)
Barbara McKissack (BBC Scotland)
............
Production credits
The Key is a Little Bird production in association with
Making Waves Film & Television Limited for BBC Scotland
Episode One
Mary is drawn passionately into the politics of her
time through her love for Duncan – a doomed love
that becomes somehow invested in the mysterious
key Mary wears around her neck.
Six decades later, Mary’s granddaughter, Jessie, is a
bullied and asthmatic teenager.Written off by her
teachers and living in the shadow of her highachieving
sister, Maggie, she retreats into the stories
she writes.
By 1997 Jessie is a single mother working at a call
centre for Sogard Healthcare, a company at the
centre of a bitter dispute in the community. Under
a Private Finance Initiative agreement with the local
council, Sogard took control of Riverview Old
People’s Home – where Mary now lives. Jessie’s
sister Maggie was deputy leader of the council that
pushed the initiative through. Her mother, Helen,
was regional officer of the union that opposed it.
“We fought the good fight,” Helen concedes.“We
lost.” But Danny, a care worker at Riverview, and
the object of Jessie’s childhood affections, has
refused to leave it at that.
Episode Two
Mary struggles through the Depression and War years.
Her favourite granddaughter, Jessie, comes of age in
1979, the year Margaret Thatcher comes to power.
It is 1933 when Mary loses a strike vote opposing
wage cuts at Leckie’s Mill and is sacked. Supporting
her mother and sister in a one-room tenement flat,
she realises that her only option is to marry and
she takes Billy, a violent middle-aged widower, for
better or for worse. For the next 12 years, it is
mainly worse.
In 1979, Jessie’s wedding to Danny, her childhood
sweetheart, promises to be a much happier event.
However, a drunken writer, a bleeding critic, a taxi
and a stolen kiss conspire to produce a disastrous
chain of events that eventually leaves Danny
stranded at the altar, Jessie on a train to London in
her wedding dress, and her unfinished novel in the
rubbish bin.
In 1997 – 18 years after Jessie left him at the altar
– Danny confronts Jessie’s mother, Helen, now a
union representative, with evidence that Sogard
Healthcare have broken vital agreements with the
union over the new old people’s home. He
persuades her it’s time for the union to fight back.
A popular campaign is launched in the Scottish
press opposing Sogard’s plans and the PFI
agreement, which Maggie pushed through.The
battle lines in the family have been drawn.
Episode Three
Having been mercifully delivered from her loveless
and violent marriage at the end of the Second
World War, Mary watches as Helen, her daughter,
and Joe Rossi, a communist shop steward from the
shipyards, settle into a life of post-war domestic
contentment, producing two grandchildren: Maggie
and Jessie. But their lives are irrevocably altered in
1968 when Joe is seriously injured in a shipyard
accident and confined to a wheelchair.
To make ends meet, the family move into Mary’s
house and Mary begins the task of raising the next
generation. By 1984, Maggie has become an
employment lawyer and, though she has married
“outside” as far as her father is concerned (her
husband’s family are Tories), she makes a good life
for herself.
Jessie has not been so lucky. Five years after she
left Danny at the altar, Jessie returns home, bruised
and pregnant, and introduces the family to her
four-year-old son, Andy. She is received with tears
of joy.
By 1997, Jessie’s life is still a disaster and, having
finally secured an interview, she hopes only for
promotion from the call centre floor at Sogard
Healthcare to a secretarial position at head office.
In this final episode the stories of all three
generations converge. As the crisis over the old
people’s home comes tragically to a head, it tests to
the limit the loyalties of everyone in the family, and
forces the timid Jessie to take the most courageous
decision of her life – in which she finally discovers
the meaning of her grandmother’s key.
Dawn Steele plays Mary Corrigan
Dawn Steele is one of Britain’s leading young
actresses, with starring roles in Monarch Of The Glen,
in which she married the laird, and Tinsel Town, as
sassy clubber Theresa, to her credit. In The Key,
Dawn is the young Mary Corrigan, the factory
worker who becomes politicised during the First
World War through contact with her fiancé, Duncan
(Kevin McKidd).
Steele was attracted to playing Mary (who is played
as an older woman by June Watson) as she is such
a complete contrast to her previous roles. “It’s
fantastic that in this I’m not wearing little skirts and
make-up, although by the end of the shoot I was
desperate to get the make-up on again!” she laughs.
The sheer power of the role was also a lure for
Steele.“Mary’s a very strong character,” the actress
declares. “She’s very political. She kick-starts the
family’s interest in politics, it’s amazing how it all
stems from her, right down to her granddaughter,
Maggie, standing for election to Parliament.
“It’s great to see that her passion is carried on
through the generations. Even in her eighties, she is
out there demonstrating on behalf of the miners at
Orgreave. She is not scared, she gets right in
amongst them during the riots.”
Mary shows great fortitude during the course of the
drama, a fact that Steele deeply admires.According
to the actress,“Terrible things happen to Mary. She
only smiles twice in the whole piece. She has to deal
with big riots and being beaten up by a tyrannical
husband [played by Ken Stott].And throughout all
these difficulties, she has no support. She just has to
get her head down and get on with it.”
The actress found echoes of that steeliness within
her own family. “My nana is like that. She’s still going
strong in her old age – she’s always off to dancing
classes and things like that.There’s a real strength
to these women.”
Just occasionally, however, Steele found it hard to
live up to Mary’s example. “I cry quite easily, so it
was difficult in many of these scenes not to let
myself go,” she admits. “But director David Blair
kept saying to me,‘Don’t cry, be strong.’ Mary has
got to have that inner strength or she wouldn’t
survive till the age of 99. However, when I first read
it, I cried three times!”
Ronni Ancona plays Maggie,
Mary Corrigan’s high-achieving granddaughter
Whether she’s Posh Spice, Carol Smillie or Judy
Finnegan, comedy actress Ronni Ancona has made a
Big Impression on audiences with her award-winning
impersonations. In The Key, she makes her BBC
drama debut as Maggie, the ambitious older
granddaughter of Mary Corrigan.As Maggie ascends
higher and higher up the political ladder, she finds
herself increasingly having to compromise the
beliefs her family inculcated in her.
It is evident from Ronni’s performance in The Key
that she is equally at home in straight drama as she
is in comedy. “Right from the start, director David
Blair said I was not gimmicky casting,” she says.“He
doesn’t give a d**n about what I’ve done in the
past, he’s only interested in whether I’m right for
this part or not. Nor was it a conscious decision
on my part to make a change. I didn’t say,‘Oh, I
want to do drama now.’ I was just really eager to
do such an excellent script.”
All the same,Ancona is expecting some to carp
about her choosing to appear in a straight drama.
“I’m apprehensive that certain people will say, ‘She’s
a comedy girl – who does she think she is?’
Obviously, this is not the sort of project I’m usually
associated with, but I don’t approach comedy or
drama any differently.As soon as you think,‘Oh I’m
doing comedy now,’ you’re on to a loser.Whatever
you’re doing, you have to make it live and breathe.”
The actress felt an instant bond with her character.
“Maggie is full of contradictions, but that makes her
very human. She’s a bright girl who is very
principled. She’s caring, confident, feisty and
intelligent and has a very dry wit. But there’s no
denying that she’s also got a big ego.”
The actress thinks that Maggie undertakes a very
convincing psychological journey during the
course of the drama. “She grew up with a strongly
socialist background, but as she develops you can
see her being pulled away from those roots.As
she moves away, inevitable tensions arise between
her and her family.
“It all leads to a big showdown with her mother.
Maggie says that ‘without power, you can’t change
anything’. But we can see that’s a slippery slope.
Where does the compromise end? Maggie feels it
will stop once she gets elected as an MP, but she’s
merely being naïve.”
The character’s idealism is gradually eroded as the
drama unfolds. “She has a great conscience and has
worked tirelessly as an employment lawyer,”
continues Ancona.“Her decline is an insidious
process – it’s all too easy to be dragged into this
world of spin. She knows in her heart of hearts
that it’s not right, but the New Labour spin-doctors
convince her it’s OK. It’s very tempting for Maggie,
but it slowly dawns on her that she is betraying
everything her family stands for.
“Whether you’re playing Posh Spice or Maggie,”
she continues, “the key thing is to create
something believable.You have to find the reality
and truly inhabit the character. If viewers can’t
identify with what you’re doing, it’s never going
to work.”
The actress will next be seen as a South London
“masseuse” in the forthcoming movie, The Calcium Kid.
Frances Grey plays Jessie,
Mary Corrigan’s favourite granddaughter
Frances Grey, who has had high-profile parts in
such varied work as Vanity Fair, Messiah and Murder
In Mind, felt a real affinity with Jessie. “I like her
gentleness and her spirit,” Grey confirms.
“When she’s a teenager, she’s put upon and bullied,
but she still has this fighting attitude. She
desperately wants to write and is bursting with
feistiness and joy. However, all that has left her by
the time she’s 36. She’s working in a call centre and
manifests all the sadness of a life that hasn’t fulfilled
its potential.”
The actress, who hails from Edinburgh, adored
dressing up for the period sequences in The Key.
“The costumes are hilarious,” she laughs. “In the
scenes set in 1984, I look like Shakin’ Stevens’s
sister – it’s hard to feel cool in a Flock Of Seagulls
hairdo! And in the 1979 sequences, I look like the
front cover of a Jackie annual!”
Grey believes that audiences can relate to Jessie’s
life. “Small children always say they want to be
spacemen, but how often does that actually
happen? We all feel unfulfilled in some way. Jessie’s
been victimised and lacks confidence. She would
have liked to become a writer, but life has got in
the way.
“Her spirit has to be rediscovered and she needs
the love of a good man to achieve that.The
relationship between Jessie and Danny reflects her
grandmother’s romance with Duncan.There is an
intriguing ‘will they, won’t they?’ quality about it.
I’m drawn to romances that aren’t obvious. I find
them fascinating.”
Ann Louise Ross plays Helen,
Mary Corrigan’s daughter
Ann Louise Ross, who has appeared in dramas such
as Split Second (directed by David Blair),
Trainspotting, Looking After Jo Jo, Hamish Macbeth, Life
Support and The Acid House, feels a real empathy
with her character Helen, Mary’s daughter.
“What a tower of strength she is!” Ross exclaims.
“I really admire her passion. Helen has been
brought up in a very political household and a lot
of her mother’s strong beliefs have rubbed off on
her. As a result of her husband Joe’s industrial
accident, she has had to take work as a cleaner.
She eventually becomes a full-time regional
organiser for a public services union and she also
has lots of relatives living in the house – all in all,
she’s absolutely exhausted.”
The actress, who has recently been on a Dundee
Rep tour of Tehran with a production of The
Winter’s Tale, hopes that the sheer political
passion of The Key might help re-energise
disillusioned voters.
“Voting figures are very depressing now.We’ve
become disenchanted with politics because we’ve
had it too easy and don’t think politicians make any
difference.There is complacency about the
electorate, an apathy, a feeling of ‘I’m all right Jack’.
People think,‘why should I bother about people
who aren’t having such a good time?’
“We have become more insular, and the idea of the
extended family has gone.The old days of hanging
out of the window and having a chat about life with
the neighbour have passed because now we’ve got
Trisha and Kilroy instead. So it would be lovely if this
drama helped people become re-engaged with
politics. I think that would be quite a contribution.”
One of the key elements of the story in this very
politicised family is a breakdown between Helen
and her eldest child, Maggie. Despite the personal
battles she has fought, Helen still has time to wage
her political wars.
Ross continues: “A Private Finance Initiative
threatens the closure of local old people’s homes,
where her mother Mary lives, and Helen is
concerned that the cutbacks mean fewer staff and
poor food. Maggie, who is on the verge of being
elected as one of Blair’s Babes in 1997, is not
prepared to compromise her chances of becoming
an MP, not prepared to go through the same
struggles as her mother.That’s a real blow to
Helen. She is genuinely disappointed by Maggie’s
New Labour politics. Maggie hopes to change
things from the inside, but her mother knows it
will never happen.”
June Watson plays the older Mary Corrigan
June Watson portrays Mary when she is older (she
is played as a younger woman by Dawn Steele).The
actress, who recently had a leading role in the
Martin Clunes vehicle William And Mary (“I played a
housekeeper who does a lot of Hoovering and
looking disapproving”), reckons that ultimately
The Key is a very positive, life-enhancing drama.
June relished tackling Mary Corrigan. “She's a
really strong, feisty woman with a fantastic set of
principles. She cares deeply about both life and
the fate of the workers. Her sheer strength
attracted me.
“When Mary is young, her mother says to her ‘oh
well, this is our lot, this is what we were born with.’
When her beloved is killed in the First World War,
her determination to struggle on behalf of her
fellow workers is redoubled. Her strength is also
very much in evidence when she is forced into a
violent, loveless marriage and she copes with
everything with a tremendous sense of fortitude.”
Later in life, Mary is equally redoubtable.Watson,
who has starred in dozens of TV dramas over the
years, including A Mug’s Game, In A Land Of Plenty,
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Angels, Z Cars and
Prime Suspect, comments that:“When Mary is 86,
she still feels so strongly that she goes to Orgreave
to support the striking miners. She’s still got such
passion for life.And she clings on to her humanity
even as she is dying. All in all, she has a huge
influence on the family.”
Watson enjoyed witnessing the magic of the makeup
department as she had to age from 59 to 98.
“The make-up is fantastic,” the actress observes.
“They don’t use prosthetic masks to age me – they
do it all with latex wrinkles or ‘green marble’,
which is a sort of plastic make-up.When I have to
go down to the age of 59, they give me a ‘face-lift’
with bits of invisible tape. It’s all very subtle and a
real work of art.”
And extremely convincing.“When I was playing
Mary at 86,” Watson recalls, “I was crossing the
road with a walking-stick and looking very doddery.
Later the same day, still in costume, I was dancing
around like a spring chicken.You could see the
extras thinking, ‘She’s not a real old lady’!”
Donna Franceschild – Writer
Donna Franceschild’s television and film credits
range from Takin’ Over The Asylum and A Mug’s Game
to Donovan Quick and Eureka Street.The trademark
of this American-born writer is her enthusiastic
championing of the underdog.
Donna’s spirited desire to fight for the rights of
those less fortunate clearly runs in her family.
“When my mum was still a young woman, she
found herself having to bring up four kids with no
husband,” the writer says.“But she never stopped
battling on behalf of others.”
Her inspiration for The Key is clearly seen in the
story of the struggle for workers’ rights over the
last century, through the vehicle of one fascinating
family. It all springs from the central character
of Mary Corrigan, an extraordinarily strong
woman, whose commitment is handed down
through the generations.
“In the Fifties, mum had to go out to work and she
discovered that the starting wage for men was the
top wage for women doing the same job. She never
lost the ethos that it’s just not right for people to
be treated in that way.You can judge any society by
the way it treats its most vulnerable.
“I chose to write about people from the deprived
end of the spectrum because their history is in
danger of dying out.There are no big political
leaders in The Key.This is a story of people like us
who happen to get caught up in the wider power
struggle.”
Franceschild has created a carefully crafted
structure, which interweaves stories from five
different time periods. She observes: “By writing the
characters’ stories, I’m inevitably recounting the
history of their time. I don’t have to hit all the
political bases because they have to spring naturally
from the characters. In the end, I’m not interested
in telling people what to think; I’m interested in
making them think.
“By intercutting the past experiences of the
grandmother with the present experiences of her
daughter and her grandchildren, it shows that you
can always find parallels between the ages.”
Franceschild fervently hopes that her drama will
prompt viewers to reassess their own sense of
commitment.“When there’s a feeling that things
have to change, where does it come from? Not
from politicians. It comes from people thinking that
things are bad and should not be this way.”
She concludes with her philosophy as a writer and
the importance of passion in her work. “A writing
tutor once told me ‘write what you’re angry about’.
When I stop being angry, I’ll stop writing. Every
single thing I’ve written has been guided by the
belief that we can choose to be better than we are.
Maybe I’m hopelessly optimistic, but I’m pushing 50
now and it’s too late to change!”
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