'The A Word' Season 3: Release date, plot, cast, trailer and all you need to know about autism drama starring former Doctor Who
'The A Word' is returning to SundanceTV this November with its third season! The show follows a boy and his family as they deal with his diagnosis of autism and is based on Keshet's Israeli series 'Yellow Peppers'. Peter Bowker’s 6-episode season will revisit the funny, messy, mixed-up lives of the extended Hughes and Scott families as they struggle to meet the challenges of parenthood, disability, and separation and to hold the family together around the child who needs them all.
Release Date
The third season will premiere on Sundance TV on November 4, 11 pm ET.
Plot
'The A Word' returns to the idyllic landscape of the Lake District and to the city of Manchester. In the two years since we left our family, everything has changed once more. Joe is ten, and living in two places at once, processing the seismic change in his life through the filter of his autism. His parents, Alison and Paul, are divorced and living 100 miles apart. His sister Rebecca has returned home from University with a secret that will change everything further. Only Joe’s granddad Maurice is holding it together, and if Maurice is the one holding it together you know you are in trouble.
Cast
Christopher Eccleston as Maurice
Maurice is the interfering grandfather who owns a brewery and as a retired man with time on his hands, interferes freely in his grandson Joe’s upbringing. But because Joe is autistic, not all his interventions have the desired effect. Maurice is played by Christopher Eccleston who is most famous for being the Ninth Doctor and responsible for the successful reboot of the Doctor Who series. He is the recipient of an Emmy Award and two BAFTA Award nominations. He has appeared in TV and film productions like '28 Days Later', 'Thor: The Dark World', 'The Leftovers', 'The Second Coming', 'Heroes', 'The Shadow Line', and the anthology series 'Accused'.
Other cast members of the show include Max Vento as Joe, Lee Ingleby as Paul (Joe's father), Morven Christie as Alison (Joe's mother), and Molly Wright as Rebecca (Joe's sister)
Creators
The English adaptation of the Israeli show is written by multiple BAFTA winner and Golden Globe nominee Peter Bowker. The show is a Fifty Fathoms and Keshet UK Production for SundanceTV and BBC One. It was commissioned and is executive produced for the BBC by Lucy Richer. Executive producers for Fifty Fathoms are Patrick Spence, Peter Bowker and Marcus Wilson, while those from Keshet are Howard Burch, Avi Nir and Keren Margalit. Clare Shepherd is the producer and Fergus O’Brien is the lead director.
Trailer
The trailer shows Joe Hughes, a 10-year-old boy with autism, who has been "split apart" by his parents' divorce. Paul Hughes, his father, now lives 100 miles away from his mother, Alison. In the trailer, we see both of them trying to co-parent despite their divorce and learning that even if they don't succeed, they need to "fail beautifully". Complicating matters in the boy's grandfather Maurice who becomes the de facto third parent but his interventions are not always welcome. We also see Maurice's girlfriend's boy (from a previous relationship) who has Down's syndrome but has decided he wants to marry while Joe's sister, Rebecca, comes back from University and is hiding a secret of her own.
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