Last week, Anne MacPherson, whose daughter Chanel was killed by her abusive father in 2004, told The Mirror<\/a> she \u201cwanted nothing to do with\u201d the series and said it was \u201cripping my family apart all over again\u201d.<\/p>\n Now, in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com<\/a>, Graham said that although he understood MacPherson\u2019s reservations, it was important to note that the drama was only inspired by the real events, rather than depicting what happened outright.<\/p>\n \u201cLike anyone would, I felt incredibly sad and sorry for [MacPherson] that those memories were being brought up again,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe approached her to see if she wanted to be involved in the way that the first family had, and there\u2019s absolutely no judgement from my point of view that they didn\u2019t want to do that. I\u2019ve got no idea what my own response would be if that had happened to me.<\/p>\n \u201cI suppose I feel the only frustration I have is with some of the reporters and the attention that\u2019s come towards the real-life people because it actually implies that the drama is closer to real-life events than it is. And so some of the language that was used in the questions put to the family of the second victim, I just sort of disagree [with how the questions were phrased] because it\u2019s implied that those people are on screen, and they\u2019re not on screen.<\/p> \u201cAnd we did that for the sole purpose of avoiding them having to live this again and having to have those conversations with the media,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut again, you balance everything up and I understand their point of view.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd to everyone else, including the police and other community leaders who did want the story to be told, I hope we found a way to do that in a way that is cathartic for them and also for the viewing public, that it speaks to a more universal, general theme around political divisiveness and toxicity in this difficult political moment we\u2019re living through at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that telling the story sensibly was pretty much all he thought about in the early days of scripting the drama and that he was \u201cprobably more anxious about this story than any other I\u2019ve ever written\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a different level of nervousness you have if you\u2019re doing a drama about Dominic Cummings say or if you\u2019re doing a drama about Rupert Murdoch,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m obviously painfully aware that it still feels very raw a lot of this stuff for people, and it\u2019s their experience, not mine, it\u2019s their pain and not mine. And you just have to take a balanced view. We had a lot of conversations locally, and a lot of people in the community were thinking that it was about time to start looking at these difficult things.<\/p>\n \u201cOthers were more nervous but were happy to tentatively step into those conversations and be involved. And then we have to be really honest that some people were really worried about it and didn\u2019t want to be involved because for them it wasn\u2019t the right time. And again, that\u2019s why I still think it\u2019s the right choice happens to not represent anyone real on-screen but to try and capture the essence of the story instead.\u201d<\/p>\n Additional reporting by Abby Robinson.<\/em><\/p>\n Sherwood airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0or visit our dedicated\u00a0Drama<\/a>\u00a0hub for the latest news.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0and get the next 12 issues for only \u00a31. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Patrick Cremona Published: Monday, 20 June 2022 at 12:00 am James Graham has responded to criticism from a family member of one of the real-life victims whose case inspired his drama Sherwood. Last week, Anne MacPherson, whose daughter Chanel was killed by her abusive father in 2004, told The Mirror she \u201cwanted nothing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":17198,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/sherwood-creator-responds-to-criticism-from-real-life-victims-family.jpg",1920,1280,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/sherwood-creator-responds-to-criticism-from-real-life-victims-family-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/sherwood-creator-responds-to-criticism-from-real-life-victims-family-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/sherwood-creator-responds-to-criticism-from-real-life-victims-family-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/sherwood-creator-responds-to-criticism-from-real-life-victims-family-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/sherwood-creator-responds-to-criticism-from-real-life-victims-family-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/06\/sherwood-creator-responds-to-criticism-from-real-life-victims-family.jpg",1920,1280,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Patrick Cremona Published: Monday, 20 June 2022 at 12:00 am James Graham has responded to criticism from a family member of one of the real-life victims whose case inspired his drama Sherwood. Last week, Anne MacPherson, whose daughter Chanel was killed by her abusive father in 2004, told The Mirror she \u201cwanted nothing to…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/17197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/06\/Lesley-Manville-in-Sherwood-2e4a23f.jpg?quality=90&resize=603%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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