As a rule, I don’t chat about the Equality Act when I’m watching TV. But as I sat down to the new series of We Might Regret This – the BBC’s groundbreaking comedy about a disabled artist and her best friend turned personal assistant – I couldn’t help but think about the cultural and political climate that it’s landing in (one in which politicians are genuinely debating whether we should scrap the law that stops employers from being able to sack someone because they’re disabled).
The writers are clearly not naive to this. Filmed last summer as the government sought to cut disability benefits, the first episode opens with Freya (played by co-creator and writer Kyla Harris) in a supermarket filming a public information advert for the Department for Work and Pensions. A prop baby flung over one shoulder and staring up from her wheelchair at nappies on the top shelf, Freya – still half-heartedly doing the disability-themed modelling she started last series – is struggling to get the right expression. Can she use some of her “lived experience”, the director asks. “You saying: ‘Hey, if something is wrong with your body, the government will throw you a fiver.’” Freya offers him another look. “OK, that’s too helpless. That’s Unicef.”
