Conversations from a Long Marriage: based on the beloved BBC Radio 4 comedy starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam

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Witty, big-hearted and a whole lot of fun, Conversations From A Long Marriage is a collection of eight scripts from the first two series of the Radio 4 comedy starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam, and will resonate with couples of any age - but especially those who are still dancing in the kitchen, singing in the car and trying to keep the passion alive. Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a couple who have been married for over 40 years. Children of the Sixties, they’re still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music – and each other.

Etherington has previously explained that she was motivated to create the comedy as she was "tired of my generation being portrayed as golfing caravanners with no reference to how they were in their youth. Conversations from a Long Marriage won the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award for Best Radio Comedy in 2020. Her couples are always equal partnerships. “I hate the idea of dozy husbands who can’t work the dishwasher. All the couples I write about are equally strong - they support each other. If there are jokes about cooking it’s about her incompetence rather than his. But that’s not where the laughs come for me – I'm interested in the emotional strength of the couples, or the people I’m writing about. Vulnerability comes in different ways.” Joanna and Roger have been married for over forty years. Children of the Sixties, they're still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music - and each other. It’s not the first time that Etherington creates a radio hit, but her writing didn’t always find its way to the screen. However, as she explains, times have changed: the creation of BBC Studios means the corporation’s radio and television production teams are liaising with each other again in an attempt to develop formats.Gorgeous is what Lumley does, and gorgeous is what she loves, as she explains in the first episode. When she was young, she loved the piano and wanted to play. But she struggled with reading the notes, so lessons went no further. Still, she and her family listened to classical records, and she heard music, too, when doing dance classes in Malaya, specifically Offenbach’s Barcarolle: “I can hear it to this day.” When pop came along, “I liked gorgeous music, so I loved the Everly Brothers… Elvis had a beautiful voice.”

Written especially for Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam by award-winning comedy writer and journalist Jan Etherington. With her writing and life partner, Gavin Petrie, Jan has created several hit radio and TV series such as Second Thoughts, Next of Kin, Faith in the Future and The Change. Conversations from a Long Marriage is her first solo narrative comedy series.An endearing portrait of exasperation, laced with hard won tolerance – and something like love.’ THE GUARDIAN