Episode 2 - Breaking the Cycle

Darren Harriott is a 37-year-old comedian from the Black Country in the West Midlands. And in reaching this age, he has lived longer than his dad, who took his own life while in prison in the year 2000 – he was 35 and Darren was 11.

Overtaking him in age has brought Darren to a strange point in life, rethinking and reevaluating everything – not least about becoming a dad himself.

Darren doesn’t have kids yet but he has begun to question what fatherhood really means. After not really having any kind of relationship with his own, would he be a good dad? What even makes a good dad? Can you learn how to be a good dad? And is he at risk of making the same mistakes that his dad made and continuing the Bad Dad cycle?

Through interviews and stand-up comedy, Darren is going to look at the role of dads, both in the family and in society. He’s going look into his dad’s background – something he’s never done before and knows very little about. And, with the help of family, friends, social scientists and psychologists, Darren will interrogate his feelings about all of this, find out what it means to be a dad, and perhaps even work out whether he actually wants to be a dad himself.

In Episode 2, Darren speaks to his friends who had similarly chaotic dads in their childhoods, who have recently become fathers themselves. Is it possible to break the cycle?

Presenter: Darren Harriott
Producer: Laura Grimshaw
Researcher: Hannah Ratcliffe
Live Sound: Jerry Peal
Post-Production Sound: Tony Churnside
Executive Producers: Jon Holmes and Carrie Rose

An unusual production for BBC Radio 4