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The joy of difference
Max Vento plays Joe in The A Word
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BBC
An RTS event unlocks the secrets that made BBC One drama The A Word such a success
ver three series, The A Word has been widely praised for its honest portrayal of autism and the tensions this unleashes on a family. But The A Word is also laugh-out-loud funny and joyful – and, given its Lake District setting, beautiful to look at. The BBC One drama, which finished its third series in early June, tells the story of Joe, a young boy with autism, and his fractious, larger-than life extended family. At an online event hosted by RTS North West, BBC North and MediaCity UK, BBC Breakfast’s Naga Munchetty spoke to its writer, Peter Bowker, and two of its stars, Christopher Eccleston and Pooky Quesnel. Stockport-born Bowker taught children with severe learning disabilities, many of whom had autism, for 12 years before his writing career took off. He was spurred into action by the Israeli series Yellow Peppers, which provides the template for The A Word – “a dysfunctional family with, at its centre, a young boy who’s on the autism spectrum. “It felt like I was being giving permission to write about my own material and understanding of it. As the series has gone on, it’s moved further and further away from the original.” Max Vento, who is not autistic, plays the drama’s central character, Joe. “We decided that it was too much to ask of a child of five on the autism spectrum to play another child on the spectrum. When we’ve cast older characters with autism, we’ve always insisted the actor is someone on the spectrum. “Max was pretty much everyone’s first choice from the moment we saw him. I remember seeing Max and saying that he looks like a chubby Ian Curtis [from Joy Division]. For me, that fulfilled the criteria, given that his musical tastes are, bizarrely, the taste of a 61-year-old man from Manchester.” Music is a prominent feature of the programme, with Joe playing post-punk classics through the headphones almost permanently clamped to his head. “I’ve been Stalinist about this: it’s entirely my iTunes [collection]. Max hates my musical taste,” said Bowker. Quesnel – who, like Eccleston, was born and brought up in the Salford area – plays Louise, the mother of Ralph, who has Down’s syndrome, as does the actor who plays him, Leon
