The MIRACLE of LIFE

LIFE BILL NIGHY, THOMASIN McKENZIE and JAMES NORTON star in a true tale about the pioneers of IVF

- CAREN CLARK

Since Louise Joy Brown became the world’s first ‘test-tube baby’ in July 1978, over 12 million people have been born with the help of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Netflix’s factual drama Joy turns the spotlight on the incredible, tight-knit team who worked against the odds for a decade to devise the revolutionary treatment and help those struggling to conceive.

‘It is a celebration of good people and an important subject,’ says Happy Valley star James Norton, 39, who plays scientist Robert ‘Bob’ Edwards, one of three trailblazers at the heart of the story. ‘When I read the script, I burst into tears. It’s unfathomable how much joy this scientific advancement has brought to so many people.’

PASSION PROJECT

The one-off film begins in 1968, as Cambridge-based Robert is carrying out fertility experiments on rodents to create embryos outside the body, and he eventually hopes the same technique can be used on humans. He soon recruits eager young nurse Jean Purdy (Jojo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie) as a lab research manager and the pair set their sights on collaborating with Patrick Steptoe (Living’s Bill Nighy), a veteran obstetrician at Oldham General Hospital, who has worked on a minimally invasive way of accessing ovaries, which could be used to harvest eggs.

The trio eventually set up a research facility at a disused hospital wing in Oldham, as they try to perfect a way of implanting fertilised embryos back into the womb and conduct medical trials with women who are desperate to become mothers, and who dub themselves the ‘Ovum Club.’