The World Premiere of the new British drama Babies took place on Sunday, March 22, at the 2026 Series Mania Festival in Lille.

Ahead of the premiere, CEETV spoke with the series’ creator, writer and director Stefan Golaszewski about the heartwarming story of a couple trying to have a baby and going thru the painful struggle of pregnancy struggle. The six-part production will air on BBC One in the UK and is distributed internationally by All3Media International.


Stefan, your newest series Babies, distributed by All3Media International, is premiering at Series Mania this year. What conversations do you hope Babies will spark among international audiences and within the industry?

Pregnancy loss is a subject that remains in some ways taboo, unspeakable, treated as an illness and not grief, and if the show can allow people to speak about it more openly and find consolation in that, it would be a great thing. At the same time, the show is in essence a love story and I hope the audiences will enjoy the authenticity and warmth of that.


Babies explores pregnancy loss with remarkable intimacy — what drew you to tell this story, and why now?

While the show isn’t autobiographical, I have some extensive personal experience of the issues explored. As such, I’m very aware of the good that could be found in bringing this subject to the surface, in terms of us as a society yes, but also in terms of the individuals at home who might be going through this or who might have gone through this previously, connecting with them and hopefully making them feel less alone. The more understanding there is of the true nature of the experience, the easier it will become to talk about it as a society.


The series tackles a subject rarely explored on television — did you feel a sense of responsibility in portraying pregnancy loss, and how did you approach it sensitively?

Yes. There is no one single experience of pregnancy loss, each individual’s story is unique, so the task was to tell truthfully the experience of this one couple, not as definitive but as just one example. I worked with medical consultants and charities, alongside my own research, to ensure the show felt as accurate as possible to the experience of the audience.


Babies balances grief with warmth, humor, and hope — how did you navigate that emotional tightrope without tipping too far in either direction?

For me the only thing to do is to try to tell the truth as much as I can within the confines of the medium and form. If the world can contain grief, warmth, humor, hope, then so can writing that represents the truth of that world. If you start from a position of honesty, then humor and heartbreak are just different manifestations of the same thing.


You both wrote and directed the series — how did that dual role shape the tone and emotional consistency of Babies?

I think it allows the thing to feel tonally complete. As a writer, I’m able to avoid clunky exposition, knowing that I as a director can fill in the gaps on set. As a director, I have access to eighteen months of thinking about these characters, and it allows me to do a deep dive into them with the actors. Camera positions, costume, design, they’re all there at the writing stage, the result of months of thinking, allowing the end product to feel organic, I hope, as if it’s just been caught rather than manufactured.


Lisa and Stephen’s relationship feels authentic — what was your process for building such a deeply believable couple on screen?

I was lucky to get to work with such incredible actors. Paapa and Siobhan hit it off immediately, they just had this sparkle together, and they’re both so real and so warm. People seem to think my work is built from improvisation. I’ve never done any improvisation in anything I’ve made. It’s too imprecise. Instead, it’s a process of engaging with the actors in a pinpoint manner about the scripted scene, what’s going on with character, situation, emotion.


Indeed, the performances from Paapa Essiedu and Siobhán Cullen are central to the show’s impact — what were you looking for in casting, and how did you work with them to achieve such vulnerability?

They are a genuinely lovely pair of people, and it was incredibly easy to work with them. They trusted me and I trusted them and together we just went on a journey. I wanted the characters to feel warm, honest, open, truthful and they were all these things and more. It’s their ability to mine detail and nuance that allowed them to find such delicacy and vulnerability. It’s a hard thing to achieve but they make it look easy. They’re two of the greatest talents of their generation.


Your work, from Mum, Marriage to Him & Her, is known for its slow-burn realism — how did you evolve that storytelling approach for Babies?

Each show has a different impetus. Mum and Him & Her were sitcoms and there I was seeking to use the norms of a sitcom in a different way, to take them literally, to use the structures as a kind of Trojan Horse so I could explore what I wanted to explore. Marriage was a drama and very much an observation of a couple, not comic, not built around dramatic tropes, it was a casting aside of TV drama norms in search of a harder, cleaner truth. The realism was there to allow study and reflection. There was something clinical about it. Babies is very different from all of these. Here the realism works to bring the audience in, to build a connection. There is a six episode, three act arc, a narrative journey of growth and self-discovery, not because the form demands it, but because that is the truth of the story I’m telling. I don’t like to make the same thing twice, which is why I ended the sitcoms when I did and why this and Marriage are so different.


The series has been described as “swimming against the tide” — in what ways do you think Babies challenges current TV storytelling trends?

That’s someone else’s phrase, not mine. I don’t work in the context of other people, I just do what I do. If someone describes it as swimming against the tide, I can only imagine they’re responding to how its impulse is to connect through truth, rather than to tease through plot. That accounts for the difference in writing style, shooting style and editing style. It has its own very different rhythm but remains, I hope, compelling.


There is a strong sense of stillness and observation in your direction — how do you use silence and small moments to convey such powerful emotions?

I’m always surprised when people tell me my shows have a lot of silence because for me those silences are noisy with meaning. It’s not something I purposefully seek; it’s just the natural result of trying to sit as a storyteller in a position of truth. If you can create the conditions for an audience to connect to a character, and do it in a way that reflects the detail and beauty of the real world, then everything they do will be telling and fascinating, the way they fill the dishwasher, how they press the button at the traffic lights to cross the road. Language is the thinnest, least trustworthy form of communication. Your decisions and your behaviors are where the real you resides.