The End of the Line
“Sometimes the answer to why you don’t have kids has to come from a dark place.”
The End of the Line is a new audio-fiction podcast featuring 12 women across 12 bite-size monologues, each of whom shares one thing in common – they don’t have children.
For some, this is a conscious choice; for others, it simply never happened for a variety of reasons. Some have experienced loss and trauma, and some are happy living a child-free life. All of them, however, feel judged.
Showcasing brand new writing, the characters in each episode are based on true stories or inspired by the actors featured and their own life experiences.
Available on all podcast formats from 29 July 2020
The End of The Line features Polly Kemp, actress and co-founder of ERA 50:50 which campaigns for equal representation for actresses (Dracula, Misbehaviour and Greed), and Victoria Emslie, actress and founder of Primetime, a global visibility programme for women working behind the camera (The Frankenstein Chronicles and Downton Abbey) and also Clare-Hope Ashitey (Doctor Who, Children of Men, Seven Seconds).
Polly Kemp says “Childlessness is the result of lots of different situations and needs to be part of bigger, braver conversations where we see value in everyone's personal decision.”
The creator of The End of the Line, Mark Heywood, was inspired by the intrusive questions people ask him and his wife about why they didn’t have children. The more women he spoke to, the more incredible stories he discovered.
Mark collaborated closely with each of the twelve actresses, as well as emerging writers such as Helen Cattle, to develop these authentic stories reflecting the hidden experience of so many women.
“I have been staggered by the generosity with which people have helped us explore their own personal stories”, says Mark Heywood. “Some of them are heart-breaking, some of them are laugh out loud funny. But each of the characters behind these stories is a real person who has been on the receiving end of incredibly sensitive questions.”