BBC and Mammoth Screen’s psychological thriller The Rapture, starring Ruth Madeley and India Amarteifio is adapted from the novel by Liz Jensen by Bryony Kimmings (Last Christmas, Bogwitch) and Rebecca Manley (Berlin Noir).
Set in a heatwave, with protestors on the streets, forensic psychologist Gabs Fox (Madeley) starts a new job at a high-security psychiatric hospital where she meets 17-year-old Bethany Krall (India Amarteifio – Queen Charlotte, The Midwich Cuckoos).
Bethany has been convicted of murdering her mother but claims she is innocent. She is estranged from her father Leonard (Sam Hazeldine – The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power, Slow Horses), who is the charismatic leader of an influential religious movement.
The Rapture is directed by Eva Sigurđardóttir (Little Disasters, Domino Day) and Jennifer Perrott (Rain Dogs, Gentleman Jack). It is series produced by Betsan Morris Evans and Joanna Crow. Mammoth’s creative director Rebecca Keane has overseen the development of the series. The executive producers are Rebecca Durbin, Tom Leggett, Ruth Madeley and Damien Timmer for Mammoth Screen. Danielle Scott-Haughton was the executive producer for the BBC.
Here, writer Bryony Kimmings talks to the BBC about adapting The Rapture for the BBC.
Bryony Kimmings
Why did you want to be involved with The Rapture?
The book really spoke to me – the idea of two unlikely reluctant heroes. Two people with a lot of their own problems really not wanting to be called into action. That felt interesting, the fact they were women with huge mental loads that ALSO needed to help with the planet, that felt real and true to my own story. That is fresh. The hard not heroic fodder that’s reality. That’s honest.
Do you recall how you felt upon the first reading of Liz Jensen’s book?
I felt very excited by the way the women spoke to one another. Like real people. Like I do my mates. Taking the piss, being rude, criticising, sometimes manipulating but also loving and supporting. The characters felt full and real. I loved Liz’s concept too. It felt fresh and new. And we need new stories around the climate. Lots of them and quick. Ones that are relatable, not dystopian hellscapes. This presented that.
How does your script differ from the book – in terms of the overall story, characters etc
The book leads towards a large disaster, whilst our show isn’t doing that. I decided to make the disaster more of an emotional and internal one. We moved from solving a tidal wave to investigating a potential miscarriage of justice. Again, simply because we know 17 years later after the book came out what the cost to the systems of the earth are if we continue with our growth and our extraction.
And how do you think it now resonates with a modern audience?
I think it couldn’t be more pressing to find new ways to talk about the climate crisis, the oil crisis, the ecological crisis in ways that aren’t our old ways. This is an example of how to do it differently; with humour and love and some politics strapped in, but not rammed down your throat or trying to make you angry. The modern audience need some kindness and solutions… not dystopias and loads of information about how it’s too late. Because it isn’t. I think it has some mirrors to modern life and the questions we all need to be asking ourselves. Hopefully it will feel fresh and new.
Tell me about your lead characters – Dr Gabrielle Fox and Bethany Krall?
Gabs is a psychologist who is just back at work after a car accident that killed her husband and made her a wheelchair user. She is traumatised and grieving, but too proud, and it’s too much of a busman’s holiday to get real emotional help. She is an island, living away from home, trying to keep her head down. The last thing she wants is a problem or a cause.
Bethany is her patient. Not that she wants to be. She hates doctors. She is in a secure unit for supposedly committing matricide but she swears she has been wrongly accused. She thinks she has magical powers. Hence why she’s in a psych unit and not a prison. She is the daughter of a rising star of the Faith Way which is a powerful religious movement. And she does NOT like her dad.
Pippa Considine
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