Family Matters

Stars Lee Ingleby and Morven Christie on the return of The A Word and how the show has transformed lives.

- Caren Clark

NEW DRAMA

The A Word

TUESDAY / BBC1 / 9.00PM

The A Word quickly became one of the stand-out new programmes of last year thanks to its heartwarming, but brutally honest, portrayal of one loving family’s struggle to deal with their son’s autism diagnosis.

As the second six part series begins on BBC1 this week, little Joe (Max Vento) is now seven and life for his parents Paul (Lee Ingleby) and Alison (Morven Christie) remains just as complex as they face big decisions about their music-loving son’s future and fresh issues within their own relationship.

TV Times met Lee, 41, and Morven, 36, on the show’s Manchester set, where they shared their delight that the show has put autism on the TV map…

Where do we find Paul and Alison at the start of this series?

Lee: It’s two years on, and they seem to have got used to the situation and Joe remains unaware that he is autistic, or so they think. Although Paul befriends an older autistic boy, Mark [played by Travis Smith, who himself is autistic], he doesn’t really want to embrace the autism community because he’s considering the future for Joe and he doesn’t like what he sees. He thinks everything can be swept under the carpet but that carpet is getting a bigger bulge!