Hi, I'm Anna Marie Cox and welcome to With Friends Like These.

This week I am talking to British comedy actress Daisy Haggard.

Among other things, she's the creator, co-writer and star of Showtime's Back to Life, now in

its second season.

It has a hundred percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where reviewers have called it near perfect,

exceptional and both extremely funny and tragically sad.

Also season two improves on season one in every way.

Now these reviews aren't that surprising, given that the show comes from the same producing

team as Fleabag, and it somehow combines elements of almost every hit prestige series

over the last few years.

It's a true crime-ish seaside town mystery with trenchant social commentary and dark comedy.

It is a show about Mary, a 40-year-old woman returning to her hometown in the UK after

serving at 18-year prison sentence.

But that's not what the show is really about.

It's about forgiveness and memory, sex and getting old, and specifically what is like

to re-enter this fast-moving world after you've paid your debt to society.

And does it take to start over and is starting over even possible?

I'll discuss all that and more with actress Daisy Hagger.

Daisy, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

So right off the top, my first question is, what inspired this show?

It's a really specific plot line.

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