10 January 2024 , 22:03
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Sue Johnston has said she talked about assisted dying with friends while watching a loved one die over Christmas.
The 80-year-old actress, known for The Royle Family and Brookside, is starring in thriller Truelove about drunken friends who make a pact after reuniting at a wake. Channel 4 says the friends pledge to "rather than let each other suffer a slow and dreadful decline, they will step in and engineer a dignified death".
Johnston was asked about the issue on BBC Breakfast following Dame Esther Rantzen campaigning for a parliamentary vote on relaxing the law around assisted dying. Dame Esther has stage four lung cancer.
She replied saying: "Just before Christmas, a very dear friend of mine died and I was at his bedside...we talked about it." Johnston added that it made her think whether she would like her family to be at her bedside "when you've gone really" and "you're just being kept alive by medicine.
David (Peter Egan) Marion (Sue Johnston) and Phil (Lindsay Duncan) in the new show (Matthew Towers/Channel 4/Clerkenwell)"I cannot answer the question as to whether I would have the courage to do it, if someone asked me," Johnston also said. A petition in conjunction with campaigners Dignity In Dying and backed by Dame Esther, to hold a parliamentary vote on assisted dying has received more than 12,000 signatories, meaning the Government will respond. Johnston also spoke about the Post Office scandal and how it has been "rather shaming" that it took an ITV drama to shine a light on this issue.
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Since the airing of the four-part series began on January 1, former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells has announced she will hand back her CBE and the Government is set to bring in a plan to help wrongly convicted subpostmasters after the Horizon IT scandal.
Johnston also said the performances in Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which included a cast of Toby Jones, Will Mellor, Monica Dolan and Julie Hesmondhalgh, were "fantastic" as they were "so truthful, and you could tell that they were invested in that material". She said: "I've always felt, I've always loved that issue-led something that meant something that (the production) wasn't airy fairy, that it had a meaning and had a question so I think that's always been part of my life."
Truelove began on Channel 4 on January 3 and more episodes are set to be broadcast.