Programme Information

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Best – His Mother's Son

Day and time to be confirmed BBC TWO

• Programme copy

BBC Two charts the fortunes of the Best family in this moving, fact-based drama set in Belfast and Manchester in the Sixties and Seventies.

Bafta-nominated Terry Cafolla admits that he was delighted to find himself working on a project so close to home, writes Catharine Davey. As a Belfast resident, the award-winning screen writer – whose work also includes BBC Northern Ireland's Holy Cross and the acclaimed Messiah series – was able to take a 15-minute cycle ride from his home to the studios where filming took place.

"One of the things that stood out to me was just how much George's history merged with Belfast's," says Terry. "When he came to fame, it was pre-Troubles. He was just a kid from Belfast who'd made good. And then, as he started to go into decline, the Troubles began. George became tied, symptomatically, to that."

Delighted by the fact that the film studios were located within the paint factory where George Best's father, Dickie, spent much of his working life, Terry enjoyed watching the development of his "blueprint" of this moving story of a mother's descent into alcoholism.

"It does feel like a tragedy at times," he says. "What we were trying to do was chart Ann Best's decline, just as her son's meteoric rise was happening. The story is really of how Ann came to drink. Ann had three kids under the age of five, the press were camping on the doorstep and everybody was looking at what George was doing. That must have started to eat away at Ann's identity. The press really latched on to George – he was called the fifth Beatle. The family back in Belfast were living in a glass bowl of publicity that they'd never asked for."

Terry trawled press cuttings and television archive footage and read every George Best biography he could lay his hands on in preparation for writing the screenplay.

"When you are dealing with real people and real situations, I think there is an added responsibility," says Terry. "When you are trying to dramatise events that are based on fact, there is a new dimension to the process of writing. Everything that we have used in the film is thoroughly researched. When you start inhabiting the lives of those characters, it's hard not to feel affection for them. As a writer, I feel that my main responsibility is to the emotional core of the characters."

Terry's own love affair with television started early, with a first memory of watching Skippy The Bush Kangaroo at the tender age of three. Terry admits that he will happily spend an evening at home with box sets of his favourite US small-screen dramas – West Wing, Six Feet Under, 24 and Friday Night Lights.

"I always get myself into trouble by saying that you have to put a gun to my head to get me to go to the cinema," he laughs. "I love telly, I grew up on telly. It's such an intimate way to watch a programme. I started out writing poetry – years ago. But the show that really crystallised for me that I wanted to start writing for television was NYPD Blue. I then got accepted onto the Carlton Screenwriters Course and ended up working on Holy Cross."

Attracted to the complexities of the story of the Best family, Terry wanted to focus on the people behind the headlines.

"I like writing about families – so that is what drew me to this," he says. "The family weren't really aware of George's problems. It was only much later that people realised that George had a drinking problem. He was young and people thought he was living some kind of idyllic lifestyle. In a way, he was the first superstar footballer – the first Beckham. Now, people like that are given guidance. But, for George and for Ann, this was treacherous and uncharted territory."

Terry is currently working on a police drama for BBC Northern Ireland.