Peter Bowker, who adapted the show from an Israeli TV drama called Yellow Peppers, said at a lunch held by the Broadcasting Press Guild: “I think our society scapegoats too easily, so I think there is a call of greater understanding. It’s about a hidden disability.”
The first episode follows Alison (Morven Christie) and Paul (Lee Ingleby) as they become increasingly concerned about their son Joe’s (Max Vento) communication skills, leading to his diagnosis. “He’s midway on the spectrum,” Bowker said, “but he has a few behaviours that might be down to eccentricity. The usual route for most parents I spoke to is speech and language issues picked up, followed by speech therapy, and you keep pushing the problem on because there is a desire or denial. We pick up this boy at the point when he’s just starting school; the parents know that something is amiss but are in denial.
“The drama is really about asking the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the parents. What would you do? Where would you go? How would you emotionally respond to this?”
Source: Buzzfeed http://www.buzzfeed.com/scottybryan/the-a-word#.hjayzM7rE
