So they can't just scrape your work automatically.

Exac- exactly, exactly.

And the problem with scraping is that scraping involves taking little pieces of all sorts of work.

And so there's all sorts of cases ongoing at the moment between different copyright holders and, and AI, AI companies.

Um, but in that, it's proving very difficult to prove what exactly these, these machines have taken.

And, uh, and so what-- one of the things that Baroness Kidron was arguing for very strongly was full transparency.

So when, when, when AI produces a piece of work, that it should have at the bottom of that piece of work where that work has been originated from.

Yeah

So what was one challenge that you knew was coming? And then what was one that took you by surprise?

So the challenge that I knew was coming was the meeting scenes, which were very, very difficult and remained very difficult through the entire process.

That thing of having to construct a scene where you're doing justice to four or five different viewpoints, where you're doing justice to a lot of text.

You know, the meeting scenes in the books last a long time and you can't spend too long on them because you'll lose your audience.

That was difficult.

The thing that surprised me was Simon, I would say.

Jack, I was always excited about delving into nikki or piggy i i felt i was a gift and and he remains a huge gift you know particularly the way david mckenna plays him he's just glorious i think and ralph is fascinating and fascinatingly enigmatic and uh and his his moral decision making through the whole thing you know i was following golding's template and golding's golding writes ralph so delicately Simon, because he is an outsider, because he doesn't actually contribute much in many conversations in the book, was someone that had to be constructed from little threads.

I can almost see some thematic ties to adolescence here in some regard, but would love to hear from you.

This is going to sound really slight, but it was huge for us.

So because my son was quite attached to his mum, the responsibility for bedtime and then crying became mine.

And then because he basically got used to falling asleep feeding.

And then suddenly he wasn't able to do that anymore.

And so I became the sort of person that would deal with the anger.

Because if he was with her, his anger would be even greater because it wasn't just I'm angry.

Oof

... um, and pretty ill for about twelve to fifteen years.

I was really struggling with it.

Thankfully, I was seeing development all through that time, and I was able to move, and I was able to find ways of dealing with the condition.

But as part of that, there's a theater company in the UK called Graeae Theater Company, uh, which is a wonderful theater company, and they had an open day for disabled, uh, artists within the industry.

And I thought about it and thought, "I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go." I was really struggling at the time, and I was like, "I think this might be interesting." And I went along, and I asked a woman, I said, a partially sighted woman called Alex Bulmer, she's an amazing writer, and I said to her, "I'm not sure whether I belong here." And she asked me what was going on, and I talked about what was going on with me, and she said, "Of course you belong here.

... stagecraft with that

[laughs]

And the truth is, I don't know why it happened like that.

I think we caught a weird moment in the news cycle, and I think we caught a story that people hadn't properly explored yet.

Um, I think if it were coming out now, we would probably have much less of a response to it.

It's just one of those things.

Sometimes you're lucky enough to catch the beginning of something rather than the middle, and, and we caught the beginning of something that clearly concerns an awful lot of people.

In terms of the prime minister, when we, when we went into Downing Street and we did all that stuff, and, and, um, and with schools too, I don't think it was ever about, oh, everyone needs to watch this 'cause it's important.

So was an element of being attracted to writing about that transgression?

Mm-hmm

... with insomnia, 'cause I had insomnia that it's quite bad insomnia at that age, and I was, like, 11 years old, and I was just sort of going, "Golding understands me," because I felt like Simon.

And then Golding kills me.

And I remember the moment when I just kind of, uh, because Simon's death is so confusingly written, you're not actually sure he is dead, and then he talks about his body drifting out to sea.

And I, I, I literally remember the visceral feeling of that moment, that the sort of heart being pulled out of, out of me.

And then I read it in my 20s, and I felt a bit more like Ralph and a little less like Simon.

And then I read it in my 30s and felt a little bit like Jack.

[laughs]

The reason why, and maybe it's not, the reason why he isn't looking at someone like Andrew Tait is because is that too obvious?

Yeah, and that there's elements to Andrew Tate's diatribes which he would just be able to see past.

The manosphere is a very complicated place and it's not like it's a single being.

And in cell culture and Andrew Tate don't belong together at all.

And in cell culture isn't that aggressive and isn't necessarily part of that more sort of posturing community.

But I did think...

The idea in incel culture that 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men would be a very powerful idea for Jamie to hear.

What do you mean he's showing all sides of hate?

We were able to accept all the praise and take that, not take it on board, but, you know.

But that's the thing about what I do.

There was a moment when Rio Ferdinand was asked why he plays in defence.

Yeah.

And he said, because I can see the whole pitch from here.

And that's how I feel about writing.

You know, like, you know, you're at the back and you're able to see things and you're able to see the wonderful creation.

Wow.

Yes.

... of the decisions that Matt and Phil were making, Matt Lewis, our brilliant DOP.

And, um, the first episode we shot was episode three, which is the episode with, um, uh, uh, Jamie in a, in a, in a training center.

And, um, and watching them make the decisions as to where the camera pointed during conversation, because that, that was possibly the m- the hardest episode to shoot, because normally in those situations you would be shooting ...

It's, it's exactly the same situation we're in now, and there would be a camera shot on you, and then they'd turn the camera around and shoot on me, and then they'd do a two shot, and then they'd do another two shot, and then they'd do probably some sort of clever shots.

Right? And that would ...

That would be five shots that told the story of the scene.

Sure.

How did it morph into that?

Yeah.

I- I mean, I don't think he's...I hope what we were doing in this show was that he's a product of many things, and I hope we're not, what we're not saying is that, uh...

And there was one quote in the article that I, I miswrote slightly so that it seemed like I was suggesting that, uh, Jamie was solely a product of incel culture, solely a product of the manosphere, which is a very, very complicated, uh, and, and not easy to understand place at the best of times.

But when we were writing it, Stephen had this rule that he didn't want to make it about, "Ah, it's because he had an abusive dad," or, "Ah, it's because he had, uh, uh, an alcoholic mom." What we instead, uh, arrived at was that there were these sorts of spheres of blame.

And I was struggling.

I couldn't quite find enough that made it compelling for me, and then someone that worked with me, Mariella Johnson, said, "I think you need to look at incel culture." And as soon as I started looking there, I felt like I had a story that was more interesting, and then I started to build it out, tried to understand it, tried to read as much as I could, tried to look as much as I could in unexpected places, and ultimately found some answers to some things which I knew if I was consuming at that age, particularly the 80/20 rule, which is 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men, if I was consuming at that age, if I was told, "You are going to have an abnormal life because of the way you look, um, because of the way you feel about yourself," I, I, I, I feel like it would have taken me down a chaotic path.

What do parents not know about what their kids are doing online, from your, each of your perspectives, and what we can do about that? I'm gonna start with you, Jack, because that parent episode was sort of the parents weren't understanding what was happening.

What is it, and why are you taking it to The Island?

My mum resigned her membership of the Labour Party when Harriet Harman sent her kid to a grammar school.

And that night, I went to a party at our neighbor Yvonne's house and a woman called Stevie talked to me there.

And Stevie said, "Your mum's left the Labour Party, so now it's time for you to join." I was 15, 16 years old, and she gave me this whole speech about, you know, "You're better inside the tent than outside the tent." And I did.

I joined, and I became Young Labour officer for Newbury Constituency Labour Party, and ended up going to the Young Labour Conference in 1997.

And it was so much fun.

I ended up being part of a walkout with Young Labour Left of, um, uh, Tony Blair's speech.

That was thanks to Graeae, the theater company that puts deaf and disabled artists center stage.

but do you feel that there is a call to action here? And if there is a call to action, wh- what is that?

It's interesting you use the phrase "call to action" 'cause that's a very popular phrase amongst the manosphere.

(laughs) Um, I hope so.

I hope it's the beginning of a discussion, and listen, w- we don't have any answers here, and we're not saying this is some sort of documentary that takes you inside.

What we wanted to do with this drama was pose a question and we wanted to understand violence towards girls by boys, you know, specifically I'm saying, not men towards women, boys towards girls.

And we wanted to get inside that problem, and we wanted to make it as complex as possible.

Stephen had one stipulation right at the beginning of the writing process which is, we're not gonna blame the parents.

Eddie has asked, "Was it deliberate to have little focus on the girl that was killed, Katy? Her friend was really upset, but that theme was just left in midair."