Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Lisa: Comedy & thrillers are frighteningly similar to start writing
Derry Girls creator on her new show
It’s just about absolutely loving the project LISA MCGEE ON WRITING THE DECEIVED
LISA Mcgee has revealed writing her new show The Deceived wasn’t too different from Derry Girls.
She created the drama, which is set to air next month on Channel 5, with her husband and co-writer Tobias Beer.
The Derry woman, whose comedy based in the city has become an international hit, said: “I was a playwright, then started writing television drama and sort of side-stepped into comedy which is now what I’m most known for.
“For me it’s just about absolutely loving the project – writing something you’d like to watch.
“You never know if it’s going to be successful. You just pray some people watch it and enjoy it.
“And I discovered writing The Deceived that there were similarities with Derry Girls. The challenge of creating an authentic world, constructing a scare isn’t a million miles away from constructing a joke – both require the viewer to have a physical reaction. I’ve always enjoyed working in different genres. You learn a lot from it.”
The Deceived centres around the character of Ophelia Marsh (played by Emily Reid), who falls desperately in love with her married lecturer.
However, their affair is interrupted by a death and Ophelia finds herself trapped in a world where she can no longer trust her own mind.
The Deceived is the first project Lisa and Tobias have written together.
She added: “We talked about working on something together for a long time but it took a while to find the right project.” Explaining how the writing process works, Tobias said: “Our system with this and other stuff we have for the future tends to be that we will talk very loosely about an idea early on – often over drinks so it doesn’t feel like work.
“Then we will do a plan for the structure and plot very rough scenes, after which we’ll carve them up and write separately.
“Then we come together and swap around, noting each other’s and editing.
“The main thing is, because we spend our lives together, to stave off a divorce we don’t tend to work together – so we never really do stuff at the same time apart from at the earliest and latest stages. “Lisa is so experienced that she is brilliant on structure and will often step away for a while then come back and give thoughts on it, which gives us a sort of extra stage of script editing for free.” Lisa added: “We don’t let each other away with anything, I’m always pushing for more story and Toby won’t allow characters to feel untruthful in order to achieve that – which can lead to some arguments but ultimately it’s all good for the show.”