This Country: 'Our life was like Parasite - but in the Cotswolds'

Charlie had dropped out of uni and Daisy, after a stint at a prestigious drama school, wasn't finding any work.

Their dad had just been made redundant and the whole family had been evicted from their old house because they couldn't afford to pay the rent.

Things were so tough that the adult siblings were even sharing a bed.

"It's really strange because I went to go see the film Parasite the other day," Daisy says, "and our lives were so similar to that family.

"We were grown-up children living with our parents. None of us were working. It was really the lowest of the low.

"Charlie and I shared a mattress that was broken in the middle. That's how desperate we were. I know it sounds funny but we were completely desperate. Things couldn't have got any worse."

Parasite, which won Best Picture at the Oscars, tells the story of a penniless family who are struggling with the massive wealth divide in Korean society.

The siblings, who finish each other's sentences, remember how they found work as cleaners and, in their free time, began to write about their life: going on really long walks, making fun of the strange people around town and pushing each other in trolleys around the Tesco car park.

Those jokes and storylines would eventually become the BAFTA-winning BBC Three sitcom This Country, about cousins, Kerry and Lee "Kurtan" Mucklowe, growing up poor in the Cotswolds countryside.

'We had to go to the library to send emails' 

"There's no opportunities here for young people in the Cotswolds," Charlie says. "There's so much of us in Kerry and Kurtan. We had that feeling of being doomed and being obsessed with the small things just to fill the days."

One of the most difficult things, they recall, is that when they were writing the show, the family didn't have enough money to pay for the internet.

"We'd have to go down to the library to, like, send out emails," Daisy says. "Even not having the luxury of sending off a script and seeing if you got a response - but instead having to walk all the way to town to go to the library - it's such a... what's the word?"

"It's like water, isn't it," Charlie replies. "It's a necessity."

"We didn't even have that," Daisy says.

And the show, now in its third and final season, deals with things like poverty, the impact of austerity and homelessness in the countryside.

"It's a shock because it's gotten worse, especially with the food banks," says Daisy. "You'd think that Cirencester - and the Cotswolds - is quite an affluent area but the food banks are constantly being exhausted."

According to a recent report from the Trussell Trust, Cirencester Foodbank gave 2,597 emergency food parcels to people between April 2019 and September 2019, a 25% increase on the same period in the previous year.

"There wasn't any food banks here when we were young," Charlie adds. "Now there's three or four, isn't there?

"We don't know so much about the rest of the country, but in the Cotswolds the divide between the wealthy and poor people is huge and it's getting bigger. And there's not a lot in between."

Daisy says she knows a man near where she lives who cycles half an hour to another town so he can collect a food package for his family.

"He's got a food bank service where he lives but he's too ashamed to go in there."

The pair also agree that more needs to be done to support young working class and rural writers, actors and performers.

"We were lucky because Daisy went to drama school and managed to find an agent so we had contacts when we started writing," says Charlie.

"There definitely needs to be more schemes for young people," adds Daisy. "Unfortunately, this industry is about who you know."

Daisy, who says the siblings were inspired by shows like The Royle Family, adds: "There are different trends when it comes to class in TV and film. At the minute, it feels like there's a lot of public school films and actors but it does swing back around."

"I think if you're working class and trying to break into this industry," Charlie says, "you need support behind you. If you're working a full time job and then trying to be a writer on the side or be an actor on the side, it's just impossible.

"We were lucky enough that we lived at home with our parents for years while we were writing the show. Without them it probably would never have happened."

'We're still just Daisy and Charlie'

Even through all the hardship, though, Daisy and Charlie - like their characters Kerry and Kurtan - always managed to see the funny glimmer of light in the darkness.

"Having a laugh was our only form of entertainment and the only thing that ever really kept us together," Charlie says. 

"What got us through was people telling us that we were funny," Daisy says, "and then we were like, 'Oh my god! There's hope, then, that we could maybe turn this around and make a success out of ourselves.'"

And that success has come thick and fast, with three BAFTAs and three Royal Television Awards under their belts.

"It's been an amazing journey," Charlie says, reflecting on the past three seasons. 

So do people down the pub treat them differently now that they're BAFTA winners?

"Not really," they both say, laughing.

"We're just Daisy and Charlie to them," Charlie says. "We don't get special treatment."

Saying goodbye to the show was tough though, they both agree.

"The whole process was emotional," Charlie says. "Obviously because we lost Michael so close to filming and having to try and plough on so close to the start was really hard."

The actor Michael Sleggs, who played the character Michael "Slugs" Slugette in This Country, died at the age of 33 last year. 

"But then I think we were all hungover on the last day," he says, as they both crack up into laughter again.

It was recently announced that This Country is following in the footsteps of The Office and getting a US remake from Bridesmaids director Paul Feig and Sex and the City TV writer Jenny Bicks. 

"It's really exciting," Daisy says. "We've seen some of the early drafts of the script and Jenny is just such a funny writer."

The US version is sticking so closely to the original that they're even having a scarecrow festival, Charlie and Daisy say.

"They know how to make it work for an American audience," Daisy says. "I think I'm happy for them to do what they want with it really."

So what's next? Is this really the end for Kerry and Kurtan?

"After seeing the Gavin and Stacey Christmas special, we'd love to do something like that in a few years,” Charlie says.

This Country is available on iPlayer and on BBC One on Mondays at 10.35pm.