I happened upon this BBC Radio 4 drama today. Written by Morwenna Banks, who is best known for comedy such as Absolutely, this is an intense and very moving portrayal of the experience of living with cancer, breast cancer in this instance. Lizzie, wonderfully played by Olivia Colman, initially has a cancer ‘scare’, which appears six months later to have been a mistaken dismissal of a malignant tumour as benign. She proceeds to chemotherapy, and to much else, including sickness, hair loss, and all the attendant anxieties and terrors that inevitably accompany her, her family and her best friend Jen.

I was surprised how moved I was by this fictional story. It felt real, believable, and so very sad. Yet there is a redemption of sorts too, and so it does leave one with a reassuring and plausible sense that life is challenging, difficult and sometimes tragic.

And so you just get on with the whole business of it, really.

Go listen…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03d836p

CQ