BBC1’s new drama Lost Boys & Fairies whisks viewers off to Neverland
Monday: Lost Boys & Fairies (BBC One, 9pm)
As suggested by the title, BBC1’s new drama Lost Boys & Fairies is whisking viewers off to Neverland – only in this case, Neverland is a queer club-space in Cardiff.
One of the regular performers there is singer Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young of Slow Horses and Deceit), who wants to adopt a child with his partner, Andy (theatre and Hawkeye star Fra Fee).
However, Gabriel is dealing with his own childhood trauma, which re-emerges during the process. It seems that before he can begin to truly parent a seven-year-old boy, he’s going to have to confront his relationship with his own father.
The drama comes from writer Daf James, who developed the project with Duck Soup Films as part of BBC Writersroom’s TV Drama Writers’ Programme in 2019.
The programme gives emerging screenwriters the opportunity to write the first episode of a new original series or serial in partnership with an indie, and the results were so impressive, the BBC ordered a full, three-part run.
Daf says: “It means the world to me that this queer, Welsh, adoption story has found its home on BBC One. It’s a story I’m deeply passionate about and I can’t overstate how indebted I am to Duck Soup Films and the BBC for empowering me to tell it authentically and without compromise.”
It’s all the more meaningful because the drama is close to Daf’s heart. Although it’s not strictly autobiographical, it does partly draw on his own experiences of adopting three children.
Daf told The Guardian: “Everything I write is personally inspired, but I’ve learned how to adapt my lived experience into fiction. Andy is a fictitious character; the father is a fictitious character; the children are fictitious characters.”
He added: “You do see adoption on screen but it wasn’t the experience I recognised. The highs and the lows. My worldview exploded. Their stories become your stories so it all expands. That year was the most challenging of my life, and often very dark – not because of the kids.”
Daf has also got an impressive cast to bring his story to life. In addition to Young and Fee, there are supporting roles Elizabeth Berrington (Stella, The Pact), Olivier Award-winner Sharon D Clarke (Holby City, Doctor Who) and Maria Doyle Kennedy (Kin, Outlander).
And it seems Daf might not be the only one to be feeling a bit emotional when it makes its debut tonight. Director James Kent was also deeply moved by the story, and is expecting that viewers will be too.
He says: “Lost Boys and Fairies is the most beautiful love story I’ve read. Daf’s scripts are heart wrenching, very funny and powerful advocates for the right of gay men and women to parent a child. They left me in floods of tears and as a gay director I’m so excited and honoured to be bringing this story to the general public.”