Arc

New episodes released on Tuesday and Thursday. If you’re in the UK, listen first on BBC Sounds.

Connie Prynne lives a small life with her daughter, Claire in Los Angeles. But when she is diagnosed with breast cancer she is forced to start addressing her past, a life she hasn’t told Claire or anyone about, a New York life, Emily’s life; a mess of a failed marriage, an affair and an accidental pregnancy that saw Emily fake her death post 9/11 and runaway to LA. If the breast cancer gets worse she needs to create a safe world for Claire, but how honest does she need to be with her daughter? We follow Connie as in the present she grapples with cancer treatment, her role as a mother and relationship with Claire. But she also leads us back through her memories of being Emily and tries to make sense of the past she’s tried so hard to forget and move on from. But with the threat of her own death, she has to find answers from her first death. Will the mistakes of her past derail or save Connie’s present?

Credits

Connie / Emily - ROSAMUND PIKE

Written and Directed by Daniella Isaacs

Additional thanks to: Emily Peska, Caitlin Stegemoller, Sam Woolf, Charly Clive, Ellie White, Ellen Robertson, Kate Phillips, Ed Davis, Ciaràn Owens, Jonathan Schey, Daniel Raggett and Charlotte Ritchie.

Emily Morris uses 9/11 to fake her own death and run away to start a new life in California as Connie Prynne. Fourteen years later, now with a teenage daughter by her side, Connie is diagnosed with breast cancer. She will be forced to confront her past so that her daughter will not be left on her own if she does not survive. She must decide how to explain her lies, her secrets, her selfish decisions – and ultimately her ‘widowed’ husband. Everything she thought she had fled from when she pretended to die in New York.

Starring Rosamund Pike and Hugh Laurie, Kyle Soller and Alfred Enoch. The first audio drama from the makers of Bad Sisters, People Who Knew Me is a 10-part series, written and directed by Daniella Isaacs, adapted from the book by Kim Hooper.

Written and Directed by Daniella Isaacs

Executive Producers for Merman: Sharon Horgan, Faye Dorn, Clelia Mountford, Kira Carstensen, Seicha Turnbull and Brenna Rae Eckerson

Commissioning Editor: Dylan Haskins

Production Executive: Gareth Coulam Evans

Additional thanks to: Emily Peska, Caitlin Stegemoller, Sam Woolf, Charly Clive, Ellie White, Ellen Robertson, Kate Phillips, Ed Davis, Ciarán Owens, Jonathan Schey, Daniel Raggett, Jason Phipps and Charlotte Ritchie

A Merman / Mermade production for BBC Radio 5 Live & BBC Sounds