ITV’s Playing Nice: Join our interactive watch thread to win £200 (TV PACE)

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Exciting update from MNHQ! Series writer Grace Ofori-Attah will be joining us this week to answer your questions about the Playing Nice series. Post your questions for Grace on this thread.

Playing Nice is available to stream now on ITVX

We’re teaming up with ITV to bring you a live watch-along of Playing Nice, their gripping new drama that’s bound to have everyone talking. We’ll be watching right alongside you, so hop into the thread and share your thoughts, theories, and reactions in real time and be in with the chance of winning a £200 voucher for a store of your choice.

Here’s the setup (brace yourself): Set against the stunning Cornish coastline, Playing Nice follows two couples as they uncover a heart-wrenching secret - their toddlers were accidentally switched at birth. Now, they face an impossible decision: keep the children they’ve loved and raised, or reclaim their biological child.

It’s tense, emotional, and we’re betting it’ll spark some heated debate. What would you do in their shoes? Let’s unravel it together - don’t forget the popcorn.

Trigger warning: Playing Nice doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, including family separation, identity, postpartum depression, emotional trauma, and domestic abuse, which some viewers may find distressing

I’d be interested to read the book - is it better/much different than the series?

I have to say I really enjoyed the series and wish there was more like this on tv! I actually stuck to watching it at tv pace too which was the hardest thing ever! 😂🙈

Can’t believe how manipulative miles was! Giving a child cannabis sweets just so he could try and blame maddie and Pete was shocking to say the least!

Imo, just goes to show no one knows what goes on behind closed doors and things can be twisted so much to make other people look bad!

I think it did have areas where it was kind of like hmm yeah that wouldn’t have happened it real life but overall it was a gripping drama that had me at the edge of my seat 😂

Premise of book is same. Different setting i e London. More interesting ending.
David is more obviously developmentally disabled in the book. In the series he seems to be pretty much on track.

Hi everyone - as promised, Series writer Grace Ofori-Attah will be answering some of your questions shortly!

Here is Grace's bio:
Grace studied Medicine at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and worked as a consultant psychiatrist in Camden and Islington before switching to screenwriting full time. Grace was selected as the first ever Writer’s Apprentice for Carnival Film & Television and she was also selected for the 4Screenwriting 2017 scheme. She was selected for the BAFTA Elevate talent scheme for writers in 2018. MALPRACTICE, Grace’s first original drama series, aired on ITV/ITVX in April 2023. The 5 part thriller, directed by Boiling Point’s Phil Barantini, starred Niamh Algar as Dr. Lucinda Edwards.

We hope you find Grace's answers interesting!

Baby Swap Nightmare!

• Whilst there's no denying the influence of genetics on an individual's development (lots of twin studies have demonstrated this), the effect of parenting/environment from birth and through developmental phases can make a huge difference to how behaviour is shaped. In the series, Miles says very early on that David has been investigated for developmental delay but as the series progresses, the version of David we see with Maddie and Pete is very different to the shy, quiet child we see with Miles and Lucy. Maddie and Pete's positive parenting style brings his development on leaps and bounds. Similarly, the child psychologist points out in episode 4 that whilst Theo has callous unemotional traits, the effect of Maddie and Pete's parenting has lessened these. It's very likely that if he'd grown up with Miles, Theo's callous unemotional traits would have received positive reinforcement.

• See answer above! Yes - I think being a consultant psychiatrist made it easier to try and imagine how four very different personality types would react to this traumatic situation. Pete is very much a peacemaker - an honest, open, straightforward person who believes the best in people. He would never conceive of anyone having the mindset of Miles, so that's why he is so blindsided by him. The drama would be less interesting if both Maddie and Pete were similarly suspicious of the Lamberts' intentions!

I was given complete creative freedom from the start. After reading the book, my gut instinct was to take the premise and the bones of the story but ground it more in reality. Being a doctor with several years of experience working in the NHS, as well as with legal and social services, there were story points that I wanted to flesh out. I also added things like the charity event, the mediation scene, and created other moments where we got to see our four leads interacting. The author read and made notes on every draft of the scripts I wrote, and I very much wanted him to be happy with the changes I was making, which he fortunately was!

The hardest part (but also one of the best things about creating a TV show) is that you have to take into account the opinions and ideas of several voices during the creative process. Notes on story come from the other execs and the broadcaster when you're developing the scripts, and as you move closer to shooting, from heads of department, the director and cast. As the lead writer, you have to balance this collaboration, whilst also keeping track of the story you're collectively trying to create because if you don't there are multiple story threads that can get lost along the way. The other thing is that you have to make the story fit into four ITV 'hours', which are actually 48 minutes. There's enough material in the book for 8 or 10 episodes! So you have to be quite brutal about stripping it down to the essential elements

As a co-exec producer, I was involved in the casting process from an early stage. We started discussing our dream cast before we'd even got the greenlight from ITV! James N was always part of the cast, and I'd worked with Niamh before and loved her. Casting James McArdle was a dream - I'm a big fan of his theatre work, and Jessie Brown Findlay was the perfect Lucy. We felt incredibly fortunate to have such a talented quartet leading the show

Do you think there is a small risk that babies could be swapped by mistake in today’s hospitals? Or are the processes in place now so robust that this could virtually never happen again?

As a doctor specialising in psychiatry, I'm really interested in behavioural neuroscience - why people do the things they do. What motivates them etc. In that respect, this was a gift of a project, having four characters reacting at the same time to the same trauma in very different ways. I really enjoyed developing their characters from the starting point in the book, especially Miles - he was the most fun to write for and James McArdle delivered all my favourite lines better than I'd imagined as I wrote them! Also, I think the best drama comes from scenarios you feel as a viewer could happen to you - then you can engage with the drama on a whole other emotional level. What would you do if faced with the same dilemma? The premise of this story is hard to beat in that respect!

I don’t think any system is infallible, is it, no matter how robust it is.
It makes you think how many times has that happened and it’s never actually or will never come to light.

Interesting! I’d noticed the effect Miles had on Theo when watching but ofcourse, David was changing too! ❤️

Thanks to everyone who got involved with this watch thread. We hope you enjoyed Playing Nice!

The winner of the prize draw is @Jellykat - congratulations!

Well knock me down with a feather!
I haven't won anything since an Abby National building society raffle about 40 years ago! (It was a Badger teddy bear, I was in my 20s) 😄
Fab!!!

Terrible. I agree with guardian: ‘…brazenly ludicrous TV thriller has its place. Sometimes it’s fun to throw all logic and sense to the wind and surrender to a bananas plot whose twists and turns – which play out amid huge, aspirationally spotless homes and gorgeous vistas – are so entertaining and hilariously camp…..’ don’t bother