BBC’s Life cast lift lid on sexist struggles in married life that set entire Doctor Foster spin-off into motion
BBC'S Life cast have lifted the lid on sexist struggles in married life that set the entire Doctor Foster spin-off into motion.
The new six part drama is written by Doctor Foster's Mike Bartlett and follows the residents of four separate flats in one large subdivided house in Manchester.
The show is a spin-off from the 2015 series starring Suranne Jones and Jodie Comer, and will see some familiar characters pop up along the way.
The cast includes Alison Steadman and Peter Davison, who play married couple Gail and Henry.
Gail is approaching her 70th birthday but their lives are turned upside down after a chance encounter with someone from her past.
Alison told The Sun's TV Mag: "Gail on the surface seems to be happy. They've been together for almost 50 years. And she has been a very loyal wife to him.
"He is a professional guy. And she perhaps would have had an interesting career but she decided to marry him and really be supportive to him.
"And she's had two children and she's obviously reasonably well off. So she's, you know, she's got quite a good life.
"But I think, you know, when the fun begins is when she realises perhaps that she…before it's too late…needs to do a few things in her life and not just be his servant cooking for him, making sure his shirts are clean and all the rest of it, that it maybe she's missed out a bit. So that's where the interesting things start to happen."
But when Gail meets a former school friend, she is reminded of the person she was before she married Henry.
Alison continued: "This woman remembers Gail to be a completely different person when they were at school together.
"Gail, she says, was in a much more lively she was, you know, a real kind of the clown of the school - she would tell jokes; she was adventurous.
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"You know, she was the kind of person that everyone looked up to, thought was funny, and now suddenly is this very kind of nice middle class lady who's very quiet, whose husband talks over her.
"I think over the years, she's got into that thing where she's gone under the radar and let him do all the chatting at parties and all the rest of it.
"And this woman points out a few things to her that makes her think, 'Ooh, maybe I have been a bit silly to let this happen'. And so she rebels."
Life airs at 9pm tonight on BBC One. TV Mag is available for free in The Sun every Saturday.