Chris Chibnall: Ex-Doctor Who showrunner delivers comedy about giving birth

 

When former Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall handed back the keys to the Tardis in 2022, he wanted to follow it with something completely different - so he has written a raucous theatre comedy about giving birth.

 

Chibnall was the man responsible for ITV's hit drama Broadchurch, then for introducing Jodie Whittaker as the first female star of Doctor Who.

And his four years steering the BBC series as head writer and producer have let him with "incredibly fond memories". 

"We had such a great time making it," he says. 

"I'm so proud of the stories we told and the people we worked with, and of Jodie's Doctor and the companions and all the writers we brought in and the things we did with the show that were new. 

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"I really feel super-proud of it." 

Even the viewers' mixed reactions were "totally fine". 

"We knew that going in," Chibnall says. "You don't cast the first female Doctor if you're thinking you're going to go in and just do the same as has been done before."

 

 

Chibnall's first project since leaving the sci-fi series represents something of a change. 

"Obviously in Doctor Who it's quite high-stakes storytelling," he says. 

"You're often saving a planet or a civilization or a universe. So to go into a different type of storytelling is really nice." 

The stakes in One Last Push, opening at Salisbury Playhouse in Wiltshire this month, remain high, however. 

Jen is heavily pregnant and her partner Mark is desperate to make sure her labour goes smoothly. 

But with a half-decorated flat in disarray, a birthing pool to figure out, and unexpected visitors, things do not go according to the birth plan. 

"The world is a tough place at the moment and I wanted to write a play that was really welcoming, really warm, really funny, and a good old-fashioned night out at the theatre," Chibnall says.

 

 

In between his television work, Chibnall has been creating a loose, long-gestating series of stage comedies about life's landmark moments. 

His first full play, 2001's Kiss Me Like You Mean It, featured a young couple's first meeting. 

In 2014, he staged the Worst Wedding Ever. 

He is not joking when he says he will "have to do funerals next". 

"These are big, high-stakes, potentially difficult events - but they're also incredibly emotional," Chibnall says. 

"Once you've been through them, you also realize, like all of life, there's a really funny, comic, ridiculous side of them as well."

Given how fraught and farcical things become over the course of One Last Push, it is a bit worrying to learn it was inspired by the birth of one of Chibnall's own sons.

 

"Not many of the events that happen in the play, you'll be pleased to hear, happened to us," he says. 

"But we did have a home birth. We had a birth pool. My mother-in-law was with us that night. We had a slightly forgetful midwife. And it was a very happy event - but it happened over the course of one night and there were very funny moments."