There is a scene in We Might Regret This that made me truly laugh, but not because it was funny. The BBC comedy follows Freya, a young woman who uses a wheelchair, played by Kyla Harris, who also co-created the series. We see her move in with her much older boyfriend, Abe, and, frustrated with patronising and restrictive agency staff, hire her friend Jo (Elena Saurel) to be her carer. Many moments – hilarious, sad, heartwarming – follow, but in this particular scene Freya and Jo are forced by an out-of-order disabled loo to find an alley in which to empty Freya’s bladder with a catheter and a pee bottle.
What made me laugh was not the obvious joke in the scene (which involves Jo being covered in urine) but the look the two women exchange as they go about their business. In a split second, it conveys so many thoughts, from “I’m livid we’re doing this in an alley” to “Now is not the time to laugh” to “For fuck’s sake”. And it made me laugh because I know it so well, that look; it is something only two people bonded by the carer relationship could ever give each other. I laughed in recognition but also in surprise: having relied on care my whole life, this is the first time I have seen it truthfully portrayed on screen.
