Manchester Film Festival Screenplay Competition Q&A | Our House by Niamh Dunne
In 1950s London, actress Kathleen O'Connor decides to pursue her dream of starring in her own TV sitcom when her radio career - and long standing engagement - collapse overnight.
Q&A with screenwriter NIAMH DUNNE
Radio plays have seen a substantial rise and fall throughout their lifetime, as the story reflects! Why did you focus on 1955 specifically to tell your story?
On a base level, I just find the time period really interesting – especially the fight between movies and television, an unknown industry with a lot of space to fill and the opportunities (however scant) that were given to women at the time.
More specifically, 1955 was the year I Love Lucy debuted in the UK (where Our House is set). Lucille Ball is an ongoing influence for the protagonist Kathleen throughout the series as she too transitions from a popular radio show to a riskier TV sitcom – so it was important for I Love Lucy to be available for Kathleen.
The 1950s was the time in the UK where television really exploded in popularity and so 1955 felt like a good starting point. Plus, all those beautiful visuals and costumes? Who wouldn’t want that?
There's a lot of fine environmental details in Kathleen's work and home life that bring the script's world to life. How did you approach researching the period to depict these two worlds authentically?
One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever gotten was about details. Audiences thrive on details, on set ups and pay-offs and little things – it gets them invested in your story beyond its central narrative and characters.
I’m a big period piece lover – particularly the 19th-century ones – but shows like The Marvelous Mrs Maisel really convinced me back to the 20th. It sounds slightly treasonous, but my research came in two stages – basic and then details. I had a bit of background knowledge into television history (finally, my film degree is useful) and did some more basic research into the time period and TV landscape before tackling the first draft.
As I kept redrafting and honing the story, I went and did more detailed research on key parts of the script. Also, one of the core components of Kathleen’s life – her lapsed Catholicism – was taken directly from mine, so I didn’t need to research much for that.
The script observes an often tense relationship between Kathleen and James. Can you talk about your process for developing their relationship, with their conflicting goals in mind?
James and Kathleen were never going to have a good relationship – but a long one that they were both kind of stuck in. They’ve been engaged for seven years, but don’t have the intimacy or familiarity you would expect. As Kathleen’s told by a producer “I think we trick ourselves, sometimes. Believing it’s love. When really, it’s a low-level hatred.”
Interestingly, I always felt they secretly wanted the same thing – fame, notoriety, acclaim – but went about it in different ways. Their personalities are so different – they don’t seem compatible at all. And yet they’re pulled together by a desire to be well-known.
One of the best things that also helped with developing it was getting actors to perform the script. Rather than just two voices in my head, I could see how physical people were responding and how the dialogue was working. It certainly changed how the characters interacted in the pilot.
Kathleen is chronically overlooked for her contributions, both at home and in the studio. How important were themes of identity and recognition to the script as a whole?
Very. Kathleen and I have a lot in common, but one of the biggest things is feeling stuck in a certain stereotype when it comes to performance. In my (brief) amateur career as an actor, I fell into a niche very quickly and usually played men or old women. Don’t get me wrong, I have wonderful memories of those roles and performed with incredibly talented actors and musicians who are now making their own way into the industry – but surely, everyone has a dream of playing the lead, right?
I still think about getting that moment in the stage spotlight. Kathleen sees great potential for herself, but she’s stuck in one place. I wanted to create a complex leading protagonist who, when faced with catastrophe, spun it to make her own career better without relying on someone else to pull her up alongside them.
Legacy is an underlying theme for all the characters, not just Kathleen, and I think it impacts a lot of people in the creative industries – we all want to be recognised for our talents, for the things we make.
The shadow of television looms long over Kathleen's world. Given the period and the story developments, how did you balance its presence against the slowly dying out world of radio?
Television is the future – at least for Kathleen. When we meet her, she’s considering it as the natural next step for her and James. But as their relationship changes, so does her approach to her future. TV is an escape route, as the episodes of I Love Lucy are for her increasingly frosty engagement.
Radio certainly takes a backseat after the first episode as Kathleen towards a career in television and as the series continues, television takes over more. The best way for me to balance was to slowly incorporate TV into the make up of the show. The pilot is very radio-heavy, with a few links back to TV and as the series continues, the balance will fall more towards the TV side than radio. It certainly wasn’t easy to do as a writer!
I think one of the best balancers of this is the character of Michael, a struggling theatre actor and friend of Kathleen’s who is slowly convinced to join her future sitcom. If anything, his character typifies how overwhelming TV became – he refuses to do it until he has no other option – both career-wise and finance-wise.
Can you reflect on the writing process of Our House? Did you learn anything new from the experience or develop a new perspective through it?
I remember reading somewhere that if you’re stuck on ideas, go watch your favourite show and ‘borrow’ stuff. The origins of Our House started with The Marvelous Mrs Maisel – the first drafts even took place in New York City. I also used Maisel as a teaching guide for how to structure a one-hour pilot (it’s a really great pilot).
I’d developed the idea a little as part of my MA Screenwriting course (my professor told me to take it further, I chose another idea – oops) but came back to it during the pandemic. I kept writing and re-writing until it gained shape. I have to give a huge amount of credit to the group of actors who came and table-read this script multiple times over Zoom across 2021 and 2022 - especially the actress Sophie Haas, who consistently came back to play Kathleen and is now the only person I can picture for the part, and the team at Ruckus Theatre Company, who hosted a lot of my rehearsed readings. I wouldn’t be where I am had I not had such a fantastic network of actors and other creatives who took time out to read and respond to my work – some of whom I’d never met before!
Because this was one of the first scripts I ever wrote, Our House taught me a lot. It’s been with me for three years and I’ve learned so much about character, dialogue, writing for television and the discipline of writing (and rewriting). Every script I write has helped me improve in some way – and Our House gave me the basis for all the TV pilots I’ve written since.
And it’s not even finished! I’m still tinkering away, trying to make it stronger.
Lastly, what do you want audiences to feel with this story? What do you hope they'll take away from it?
I want them to laugh, at least a little bit. Though I’d officially class it as a ‘dramady’, Our House is supposed to have funny moments. In those old women and male roles, I’d play the clown, always look for the joke in the line. An early draft had Kathleen saying ‘Comedy’s easy, making people feel is hard’ – and that’s how I approach so much of my work.
I wrote this while things were very scary in the world and getting to play around in a 1950s world that felt much more insular than my own was a real balm. I hope the same kind of feeling gets transferred to whoever reads it or, one day (hopefully), watches it.
Hopefully, most of all, I hope they enjoy the story of a smart, lapsed-Catholic coming out of a bad relationship who decides to make a splash in the world of 1950s TV.
About Niamh:
Niamh Dunne is an emerging writer from the United Kingdom. She was awarded her MA in Screenwriting (with Distinction) from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2020 and writes comedies and comedy-dramas for film and television.
Her work has garnered a number of accolades, including being selected for Filmmarket Hub’s UK Hub List 2023, joint-third at the MANIFF Screenplay Competition (2023) and semi-finalist in the Shore Scripts Feature (2022), TSL Free Screenplay (2022, 2023) and Screencraft Drama (2022) Competitions.
She is currently in development for a brand new play set to be announced soon and is currently seeking representation.