Joy star James Norton on the ‘postcode lottery’ of IVF – and playing the scientist who was part of creating the first ‘test-tube baby’
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
In the UK, statistics show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton star in Joy. All pics: Netflix/ Kerry Brown
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
Norton portrays scientist Bob Edwards, while McKenzie plays embryologist Jean Purdy
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
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In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November
Entertainment
Meghan reveals who said ‘I love you’ first with Harry – and what she misses about the UK
The second season of the Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle show With Love, Meghan, has been released.
Over the eight-episode series, which features celebrity guests including US model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen and Queer Eye’s Tan France, Meghan opens up about what she misses most about the UK, the meal she cooked on the night Prince Harry proposed, and who said “I love you” first.
Despite Harry not making a cameo in the Netflix show, Meghan does give some insight into her life in California with the prince, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet.
In one episode, she says it was Harry who first said he loved her, and that she fell in love with him while camping in Botswana, on the pair’s third date.
Harry and Meghan on the day they announced their engagement. Pic: PA
“We met in Bostwana and we camped for five days together,” she says, adding: “You really get to know someone when you are in a little tent.”
Later, Meghan reveals she tried to make a roast chicken on the night Harry proposed in 2017, but it didn’t turn out how she expected.
“I will say when I made a roast chicken for my now-husband I was still having a lot of challenges with the conversion of celsius and fahrenheit. I made a horrible chicken that night. I mean, truly terrible,” she says.
After first getting married, Meghan had planned to apply for British citizenship. But the pair later moved to the US after stepping down from their roles as working royals.
Meghan told Tan France she misses listening to Magic FM. Pic: Netflix/PA
In episode three, with British fashion designer Tan France, Meghan admits one of the things she “misses the most” about the UK, after leaving five years ago.
She says: “Honestly, one of the things I miss the most about the UK is the radio station called Magic.”
To which France quips: “Magic FM. Wow! Now, sorry to say this to you publicly, but that’s such a grandma station.”
A laughing Meghan replies: “I’ll be that grandma.”
During a moment where the pair are crafting aprons for their children, Meghan says she “always wanted to be a mum”, which is now “better than she expected” after the birth of Archie, in 2019, and Lilibet – who they call Lili for short – in 2021.
Meghan and Chrissy Teigen. Pic: Netflix/PA
Sympathising with France, who explained he gets heartbroken if away from his two young children for more than a couple of days, the duchess says the longest she and Harry have ever been without seeing their children is almost three weeks.
“I was… not well,” Meghan says about the separation.
In Harry’s 2023 memoir, Spare, he wrote of the “difficult days” after Queen Elizabeth’s death and how he and Meghan were separated from Archie and Lili for “longer than we’d ever been”.
He said when they reunited at their home in Montecito, “for days and days we couldn’t stop hugging the children, couldn’t let them out of our sight”.
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The premiere of the second season of With Love, Meghan comes two weeks after Harry and Meghan announced a watered-down deal with the streaming giant Netflix.
They have signed a “multi-year, first-look deal for film and television projects”, in contrast to their reported $100m (£74m) contract five years ago.
US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.
The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.
The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.
He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.
He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.
Pic: AP
During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”
A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.
The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.
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NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.
In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”
“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.
In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.
Several bands have pulled out from the Victorious music festival just hours before their scheduled performances, following claims by Irish folk group The Mary Wallopers that they were “cut off” for displaying a Palestinian flag.
The Last Dinner Party, Cliffords, and The Academic announced on Saturday that they would no longer be performing at the annual music festival in Portsmouth following Friday’s incident.
The organisers, who said the band’s set was cut short for using a “discriminatory” chant, have since apologised and promised to make “a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people”.
Rock band The Last Dinner Party said they are “outraged” by the incident and would boycott the festival.
“We are outraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious. As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today,” they said in a statement shared on their Instagram page.
“As Gazans are deliberately plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence, it is urgent and obvious that artists use their platform to draw attention to the cause.
“To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.”
Abigail Morris, Emily Roberts, Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland and Aurora Nishevci of The Last Dinner Party. File pic: Reuters
The Last Dinner Party said that throughout the summer, they have used their performances to encourage their audiences to make donations to a medical charity supporting Palestinians and urged their fans “more than ever to do the same”.
The band said they are “devastated to be put in this position” and apologised to those who were hoping to see them perform.
Following The Mary Wallopers’ set, a spokesperson for Victorious said: “We spoke to the artist before the performance regarding the festival’s long-standing policy of not allowing flags of any kind at the event, but that we respect their right to express their views during the show.
“Although a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist’s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist’s decision to stop the song.”
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The Mary Wallopers claimed the festival had released a “misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant, and not the band’s call to Free Palestine”.
The band said their video “clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of ‘Free Palestine'”.
“The same crew member is later heard in the video saying ‘you aren’t playing until the flag is removed’,” the band added.
Rock band The Academic have also pulled out of the festival, saying they could not “in good conscience” perform at “a festival that silences free speech”, while Irish band Cliffords said they “refuse to play if we are to be censored for showing our support to the people of Palestine”.
After the bands’ announcements that they were pulling out of the festival, the organisers released another statement, saying that they did not handle “the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached”, and issued an apology.
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