BBC One – The Andrew Marr Show, 05/07/2015, Emily Watson: Role of 7/7

Julie Nicholson’s daughter Jenny, who was 24, was killed in one of a series of explosions on the capital’s transport network. In total, 52 people were killed and more than 700 injured. “To contemplate what happened to Julie’s daughter happening to my own, is a brink that I have to pull back from”.

But on 7/7, families across London were forced into what most us can mercifully ignore. “I’m a Londoner and everyone has their memory of that day and how it unfolded and how desperately sad and scary it was, so when this came along it just felt right”, she explains. I could stand up as an Anglican priest, with my dog collar on, and speak those words of forgiveness and reconciliation. Neither is it the book from which it’s taken.

“Song for Jenny” stars Emily Watson as the bereaved mother, whose shock and grief that bad day were compounded by confusion as to why Jenny had been at an unusual tube station, and delay in locating and identifying her body. So even if drama and book both failed as pieces of art, it wouldn’t matter one jot.

Buncrana native McGuinness, whose plays include Factory Girls and Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, was prompted to read A Song For Jenny: A Mother’s Story of Love and Loss after being impressed by Julie when he saw her interviewed on the news. Beside that, questions of how “good” the programme was are trivial. As you can imagine I did find the drama incredibly moving but there were still elements of it that were far from ideal. It made me cry.

“Faith, to me, is not like a shopping bag full of stuff that you can pick up and put down”, she says, carefully. There – this drama sent me off onto thoughts of family, and not of grand gestures, but simple, tiny things like getting a stool for Sofia so we can bake together. I do think that if it were not for these flashbacks then all we would have seen of Jenny would’ve been the aforementioned family meal which told me very little about the specifics of Julie’s relationship with her child.

“Only Jenny can forgive them”, she said following a screening of the drama three weeks ago. “Although she kind of lost her faith, she came through it and chose life and love and not hatred”.

“She’s an extremely quiet, extremely strong person”, he told BBC Radio Four’s Front Row this week. He brought no comfort or relief to Julie Nicholson, and, of course, the bombings themselves were carried out by religious fanatics.