Mayflies

Now Mayflies has been turned into an intimate and moving two-part BBC drama, starring Martin Compston, Tony Curran and Ashley Jensen. O'Hagan spoke to Esquire ...

Music was better and the best of it carried a whole political and political culture with it. The book was for me a big new adventure in journalism and fiction. Martin has been in the business since he was a kid, doing brilliant stuff, and he just has an instinct for where the camera is and how to inhabit a character. Six Feet Under had a brilliant, all-time, humane ending, showing a kind of flash forward of all the main characters to the end of their lives. I mean, there was a time when New Order, The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen, and a dozen other brilliant bands all had singles out in the same week. On the other hand, it’s nice to make a bid for the least Elf-like film of the year! This is a season when the sad shit goes with the joy, and Mayflies might find a place in all of that. He brought integrity to the whole production and was lovely to work with. For me, the leading force in all of this was [Bafta-winning production company] Synchronicity Films and it’s head, Claire Mundell. I was sad to lose the Sicily scenes — that holiday was like a reflection of their teenage adventures in the book — but you become pretty realistic on a show like this, especially when you’re serving as an executive producer. Written as a eulogy to his friend ‘Tully Dawson’, it concentrates on a group of teenage boys at the climax of their youth, their friendships built on music, film and rambunctious spirits. The second moment was when I heard the actors doing the read-through.

The new two-hander starring Martin Compston was filmed in cities including Ayrshire and Glasgow last autumn. Tully (TONY CURRAN) and Jimmy (MARTIN COMPSTON) ...

The pub, Brechins Bar, shared some photo of their experience having the pair in for filming on their Facebook page. [Martin Compston plays Jimmy,](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/martin-compston-interview-mayflies-plagued-self-doubt-sabotage-2026341?ico=in-line_link) a Scottish man reminiscing his enigmatic best friend Tully (Tony Curran) in 1986 Manchester. [Airing tonight](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/mayflies-cast-stars-martin-compston-when-on-bbc-one-tonight-how-many-episodes-2053263?ico=in-line_link), the two-hander stays true to O’Hagan’s Scottish roots.

New BBC drama Mayflies tells a story of friendship and everyday tragedy. But is it based on a book, and is it a true story? Here's all you need to know.

"He completely understands the need to make some changes to suit the televisual form and gave us his blessing. Novels and screen stories are two very different forms and the challenge of any adaptation is taking the essence of the novel, keeping the truth of it, while making it work as a dramatic and visual experience." Gibb also noted that O'Hagan was happy for these changes to be made, explaining: "Andrew has been the most generous and brilliant collaborator. But is the series based on a true story? O'Hagan also revealed that he was on set "a lot, mainly as a cheerleader and a mascot." When he was dying – he had esophageal cancer and he knew he only had months to live – he asked me to do it, and I thought, 'I’m going to do this.' I just didn’t realise I was going to do it immediately while the whole thing was so raw. While the book first details Jimmy and Tully meeting and their life growing up, before the second half shows them years on when Tully gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, in the series these two timelines are interspersed. "That’s the kind of life that we had then and we loved the glamor of music and film, and he was my buddy when it came to all that. Casting is a tough game and it keeps you up at night!" I was nipping off to read Interview magazine coming from a strike meeting. It was also just fun to be with these brilliant people as they worked to tell this very warm-hearted story. It follows lifelong friends Jimmy and Tully, as they grapple with the news that Tully has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Thirty years later, the two are drawn back together when Tully calls up Jimmy with news that will test their friendship to its limit. Tony Curran ...

It is so good though, spot on with all the casting, the acting is incredible.’ Absolutely brilliant and a wee cameo from Andrew himself Well played @TonyCurran69 @martin_compston.’ [Line of Duty star Martin Compston ‘kills off family and friends in his head’ to get himself into character while filming](https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/07/martin-compston-kills-off-family-in-his-head-to-get-into-character-17898655/?ico=more_text_links) [Martin Compston and Tony Curran recall their teens for new BBC drama Mayflies](https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/14/martin-compston-and-tony-curran-recall-their-teens-in-drama-mayflies-17929461/?ico=more_text_links) [Martin Compston](https://metro.co.uk/tag/martin-compston/?ico=auto_link_entertainment_P1_LNK1) and [Tony Curran](https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/27/mayflies-review-most-life-affirming-two-hours-youll-spend-this-xmas-17987590/)’s emotional new drama [Mayflies](https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/14/martin-compston-and-tony-curran-recall-their-teens-in-drama-mayflies-17929461/) has left viewers bawling their eyes out. The series begins with Jimmy (Martin) and Tully (Tony) in Glasgow in 1986 forming a bond based on music, movies and rebellion, all culminating in an epic weekend in Manchester.

How many episodes of BBC's Mayflies starrring Martin Compston an Tony Curran are there? Details as a two-part adaptation of Andrew O'Hagan's book starts.

BBC Mayflies is a two-part drama. The second and final part will then follow the next day, Thursday, December 29. A synopsis for the series reads: "Everyone has a Tully Dawson (Tony Curran) – the friend who defines your life. Tully has the worst kind of news and a request that will test their friendship, love, and loyalty to the limit." Thirty years on, half a life away, the phone rings. Asked what he hoped viewers would take away from it he added: "I think they'll take away joy and sadness, humour, and reflection, a sense of life's big questions amid the best soundtrack ever to hit the BBC."

The 38-year-old took to social media to thank viewers on behalf cast and crew on the TV adaptation of Scots author Andrew O'Hagan's book of the same name.

[filmed in and around Glasgow and Ayrshire](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/ayrshire/bbc-drama-mayflies-starring-line-27922854) and tackles the controversial subject of assisted dying. He added: "We don't have the answers to it, there's very rightly on both sides strong opinions. The [Line of Duty](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/bbcs-line-duty-to-return-28792155) actor stars alongside Tony Curran and Ashley Jensen in the heartbreaking drama which tells a story of friendship, love, and loyalty. Tony admitted he was attracted to the series because he "thought it was a poignant, beautiful story that hopefully people enjoy". You know, from my own point of view, I'm a patron of a hospice, I think their end of life care is wonderful. The 38-year-old took to social media and said: "Whole cast and production team of MAYFLIES been blown away by reaction of those who watched on [@bbcscotland](https://www.instagram.com/bbcscotland/) and [@bbciplayer](https://www.instagram.com/bbciplayer/).

Martin Compston will forever be Line of Duty's DS Steven Arnott to a significant chunk of the TV-viewing population. For that reason, it still remains ...

Fast forward three decades and Jimmy was living the big life in London, while Tully seemed haunted by the spectre of the dreams he had not fulfilled. Thinking back to his younger days, Jimmy was, in a way, mourning the loss of that version of himself as much as he was his terminally-ill friend. The feeling of freedom and excitement was wonderfully captured in flashbacks that had the quality of old polaroid photographs. In the 1980s, Tully was the head-turning charismatic one, Jimmy the pale introvert. With younger actors playing the duo and their crew of mates, we accompanied them on a lost weekend in Manchester. However, he was dragged back to his past when his old friend Tully (Tony Curran) revealed that he had a terminal cancer diagnosis and just four months to live.

Drama about an incurable cancer patient looking to end his life in Switzerland will move audiences to tears.

Death, when it comes, is not in the highest Roman fashion – asp clutched to bared breast – but in the unglamorous observation, on the way to an assisted dying clinic, that he’ll “never see Scotland again”. “Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion,” Shakespeare wrote in Antony and Cleopatra, “and make death proud to take us.” This is the line that Tully quotes back at his bookish friend, strong-arming him into the Swiss plan. But it is Ashley Jensen who is most devastating, as a wife shut out of the biggest decision of her life. [Martin Compston](/topic/martin-compston) is Jimmy, a successful author returning to the Ayrshire of his youth at the behest of Tully (Tony Curran), his oldest friend who has incurable cancer. It’s no surprise then that Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan used “mayflies” as the title of his 2020 novel about two friends working through a lifetime of memories as the light fades, a story that’s adapted this Christmas as a BBC One two-part special. “The common mayfly has a life expectancy of just one day,” announced the voiceover in a memorable Vodafone advert from the early Noughties.