Treatment - first episode

Learning to Breathe is a provoking portrayal of gender politics in the 1980's when the UK, caught up with high drama of riots, bombings and privatisation, was looking the other way. This ambitious, character-driven drama offers fresh insights into the personal politics of the 1980s and the issues which affected women on a very private level.

Winter, 1981. Against the backdrop of Thatcher’s ironclad Britain, an unlikely group of women are brought together in a story of loyalty, friendship and survival.  Meryl - feisty, independent and living on a shoestring - meets Anita, passive, devoted housewife, cushioned by her middle class lifestyle. Both pregnant, they meet at the new NHS antenatal classes. Jane, 'Queen of the Mother Hens', has also been dragged to the classes and leads the contingent of moneyed, conservative women who would otherwise never mix with anyone beyond their clique.

In a poky classroom, amid breathing lessons and labour plans, a deeply divided society is revealed. The group's teacher Sandra, a ‘relic of the 60s’, is still pushing for women’s rights, yet men like Darren embody the suited business elite of the 80s, and women like Jane still exist to extol  ‘housewifely’ virtues.

Meryl, nineteen, is an outspoken Irish immigrant who has fled her small-time town. Having fallen pregnant, she faces an immediate future of prejudice and loneliness: not only is she a scapegoat for all actions of the IRA, but she is also a young single mother-to-be. Anita, thirty, thought she would always be a secretary. She couldn’t believe her luck when her boss of seven years, decided to marry her. But the new world of corporate dinners throws her out of her depth, and her new ‘friends’ only sugar coat the truth. She doesn’t belong here.

When Meryl and Anita turn up to their first antenatal class having ‘forgotten’ their birthing partner, they are paired up, causing waves among the more conservative women. Yet when Anita discovers that her husband, Darren, is having an affair with his secretary, Meryl becomes her unlikely confidante. But Meryl also bears her own burdens. Having been fired, and already alienated from her Catholic family in Ireland, her pregnancy makes her feel more alone than ever.

Meryl and Anita discover Jane has miscarried. Jane is grief stricken, and is at odds with her family. When Meryl is hospitalised, and her own child’s life is at risk she becomes enlightened with a new empathy. Despite the previous bullying and snide remarks she empathises with Jane and helps her through her grief. They return, together, for the last antenatal class. The three women who, at the beginning of the first episode, couldn’t have been any further apart, are brought together.

On Christmas day, Anita finally faces her fears and confronts Darren. As the snow falls, Anita joins Meryl to celebrate. They may not have the lives that they 'should' have, but they are finally able to enjoy the lives they've got, independent of anyone or anything else.