Jan explains that it was an intentional move on her part not to name the characters brought to life so memorably by Lumley and Allam. “Firstly, I really don’t like that radio convention where the names of characters are casually dropped into the dialogue – “Hello Kate, come in. Phil darling, it’s Kate at the door” it sounds contrived and awful, so I deliberately wanted to steer away from that
“But, I also wanted to make my couple ‘universal’ – I wanted people to listen in and recognize themselves, relive situations that they had been in or hear conversations that they had had being repeated back to them on the radio. So, if my couple had names it would prevent listeners from fully accepting that the pair in the drama could be them.”
Jan explains that it was an intentional move on her part not to name the characters brought to life so memorably by Lumley and Allam. “Firstly, I really don’t like that radio convention where the names of characters are casually dropped into the dialogue – “Hello Kate, come in. Phil darling, it’s Kate at the door” it sounds contrived and awful, so I deliberately wanted to steer away from that
“But, I also wanted to make my couple ‘universal’ – I wanted people to listen in and recognize themselves, relive situations that they had been in or hear conversations that they had had being repeated back to them on the radio. So, if my couple had names it would prevent listeners from fully accepting that the pair in the drama could be them.”