Trivia / Conversations From A Long Marriage

• The Danza: An interesting example. Although the two characters never address or refer to each other by name, they are invariably referred to as Joanna and Roger in listings, reviews etc.
• Underage Casting: Roger Allam is in fact seven years younger than Joanna Lumley, whereas the characters they play here are of a similar age.
• Word of God: Jan Etherington is on record as saying that she wrote Conversations from a Long Marriage because she was angry about negative media portrayals of older women, as this quote from a Radio Times article makes clear:
  I was angry about the way older women were portrayed in drama and comedy. Either as miserably married, interfering mothers-in-law, bitter ex-wives, tetchy, spiteful control freaks — or technophobic grannies in pinnies, patronised by the whole family. "Come on!" I'd shout at my radio and TV. "Where are my contemporaries? The strong, smart, funny women who have laughed and loved their way through life since the Summer of Love, and might still be married to the sexy hippie they met at Glastonbury '71?" We may be Senior Railcard Holders but we turn up the car radio, sing along with Marvin Gaye and are still dancing in the street with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Yet we were nowhere represented. So I wrote a series myself, about a woman who I recognised, had my references. I placed her in a long marriage that still fizzed with passion for life, music, wine and yes, sex — and I knew who I wanted to play her. Joanna Lumley epitomised how we all want to grow older. Not just beautiful but engaged, curious, warm, clever and funny. Thank God she said yes, because I didn't have a back-up choice!