‘Dilemmas don’t get harder than this’: viewers of BBC’s Best Interest are left in tears

Viewers of BBC’s Best Interest were left in tears last night as they praised Sharon Horgan for her ‘heartbreaking’ performance in the new drama.

Written by Jack Thorne of His Dark Materials, the series documents a couple’s struggles as they fight to keep their daughter Marnie, who suffers from congenital muscular dystrophy, alive after doctors tell them it’s in her best interest to be allowed to die .

Niamh Moriarty, who has a form of cerebral palsy called spastic diplegia, appears as Marnie in the new four-part drama alongside Sharon and Michael Sheen.

The story follows the family as they go through the difficult legal process and struggle to come to grips with the monumental decision.

The first episode aired last night, leaving viewers devastated by scenes in the drama, one of which wrote, “God acting harrowingly, powerfully, forcefully. Wow.’

Another commented: ‘Just watched Best Interests on BBC1 there and it was brilliant.

‘Sad but brilliant. Hard not to be with that cast, Sheen and Horgan great as always.”

A third wrote: “Best Interests has already brought me to tears. Poor Marnie, she’s been through so much in her short life.

“My heart breaks for her parents and sister sat helplessly watching.”

A fourth added: ‘Well, Best Interests on BBC1 was a tough watch. Great acting and a slowly revealing plot with the whole family battling through a horrible condition.

“It’s a lose-lose situation.”

A fifth said: ‘Dilemmas are heartbreakingly more difficult than this. A powerful, hard watch, beautifully executed by one and all across the board.”

In the show, Sheen and Horgan play married couple Nicci and Andrew. They have two daughters: Katie, played by Conversation With Friends’ Alison Oliver, and Marnie, played by Moriarty.

The series explores children’s rights and the disabled community in the UK as it follows the married couple as they are forced to make impossible choices.

Within moments of the drama beginning, the couple can be seen returning from a rare weekend getaway to meet Marnie’s caretakers.

But shortly after they return, they are forced to call ER for Marnie as they rush to the hospital.

Flashbacks show Nicci and Andrew discovering their daughter has muscular dystrophy and learning more about what this means for her future.

The doctor shares the news that their daughter had the incurable condition and tells them that “further deterioration seems likely, while she is unlikely to be able to walk unassisted and will see further deterioration of major organs.”

“I think you need to get ready or Marnie’s life won’t be a full one.”

He continued, “There are many beautiful stories in this life. Marnie’s life will be different. You will find so much joy as you adjust to that difference.”

Meanwhile, the couple blames themselves for her sudden health decline these days.

Andrew tells Nicci, “Leaving… this didn’t cause this. We’ve been here before, you’ll be fine.’

Writer Jack Thorne makes their situation even more impossible with another euphemism, as another corny doctor informs them that Marnie may need “palliative care.”

After a heart attack, she is unconscious and breathing through tubes, with the doctor telling the family, “Every time.” [this happens] she gets a little sicker and she never gets back to where she was before.

“The past year has been extremely tough.”

“We have to ask ourselves what the costs are, whether it’s right to continue to treat her like this.”

Fiery Nicci understands the meaning to her gentle husband: “She says she wants her to die.

“The hospital wants my daughter to die and I think she should live.

“They can’t decide what to do – she’s our child.”

Nicci wants every possible intervention for her daughter, including experimental treatments discovered on the internet.

The mother of two tells doctors, “She’s still smiling, she’s still loving.”

However, the medical team argue that continued intervention is not in Marnie’s ‘interests’, saying she is ‘deteriorating rapidly’, although there is suspicion that it is really a matter of money.

Meanwhile, tensions arise between Nicci and Andrew over how best to care for their daughter, with the mother telling her husband, “Promise me you’ll fight for her.”

The dilemma is summed up by Marnie’s big sister, Katie, who said, “How can you let someone go who’s still smiling?”

While Sharon said the emotional script for Best Interests, written by disability rights activist Jack, “broke” her when she first read it.

She added, “Best Interests” broke me when I first read the script and then again after talking to Jack about it.

“COVID seems to have shed a better light on the desperate inequalities that exist for our disabled community, so this felt very timely.”

Prior to the project, Michael said, “Jack Thorne is such an extraordinary writer and he has approached this incredibly important and urgent topic with humanity, honesty and humour.”

Moriarty, who plays Marnie, previously said of the role: ‘I didn’t think I would ever get a chance to prove myself and my talents’ and called on those casting for disabled roles to use disabled actors.

She told the Irish independent: ‘I hope they do [young people] will feel seen because when I was a kid I never saw myself on a screen and I think if I did it would have completely brightened up my world and made me feel so represented.”

The teenage actor, who grew up in Killiney, County Dublin, said it was hugely important to her to get the character’s “physical attributes” right.

She decided to take up acting at the age of ten after realizing that her friends were beginning to take up physical hobbies such as Gaelic football, which she was unable to get involved in, saying, “I enrolled in our local drama school. And from there I started to realize that acting was something someone could do as a job.”