I have an idyllic vision of a Sunday evening in my head. It consists of this; the house is tidy and ready for the start of the week, packed lunches are done and are in the fridge, the children are down, either asleep or in their rooms. In other words- peace. In this fantasy I flop onto the sofa, turn on the TV and flick through iPlayer for something to watch. I don’t want something heavy and gritty, and I don’t want utter mindless trash. I want something… in the middle. I turn on Beyond Paradise.

Now to be clear, my Sunday evenings are never like this. With four children, all with competing needs, my Sunday evenings are quite the opposite. But I have managed, over the past six months, to gradually watch the programme Beyond Paradise. A delightful spin off from Death in Paradise (which I also enjoyed).

I grew up in the era of My Family, an early 2000’s BBC sitcom, with Kris Marshall playing the incorrigible Nick—bouncing through life with an ease and joy found mostly in his failures and mistakes. Seeing Kris Marshall back on screen has been a delight and his character Humphrey in Beyond Paradise isn’t a million miles away from Nick. However, where Nick was the centre of a family, Humphrey, and his not-yet wife Martha (played by Sally Bretten) are trying to build one. And it’s this background narrative which draws us, in a gentle way, into what family really is, and how it's built.

Humphrey and Martha are struggling to conceive. They explore IVF and, realising that birth children might not be for them, end up becoming foster carers. This is rare to see on screen, especially in a Sunday afternoon series. Reality and grit are not found in Beyond Paradise and yet, gently, this huge topic, which is full of reality and grit, unfolds very sensitively and delicately before our watching eyes.

I have four children, two adopted, and I work in the world of fostering, adoption and supported lodgings so this is a personal and professional interest. The world of fostering is struggling; recruitment and retention is very difficult whilst the need grows ever higher. Often news stories tell us of the failings of the care-system, the horror stories emerge, and fostering is seen in the bracket of ‘not for me’ or ‘too difficult’ or ‘broken Britian.’ But I want to challenge that. As Martha simply puts it, “it’s just about providing somewhere they (children and young people) feel safe.”

It’s wonderful to see a story arc that draws upon the assessment process of becoming a foster carer and then into children and young people arriving and being cared for. It’s even better that this is portrayed in a mainstream programme that will appeal to a wide audience. It fairly depicts the assessment process as ‘a bit intense’ but the social worker is ever reassuring and encouraging, again not something you see often on the TV.

There are currently 104,000 young people and children in the care system who live away from their home. Around 70% of these children and young people are in some form of foster care. More foster carers are needed in the UK, Fostering Network suggests that we need between another 6,500 foster carers in England alone to meet the need, particularly for the large and growing number of teenagers in care.¹ And if you are not involved in this world, it can be totally hidden from you.

I applaud the writers of Beyond Paradise for putting this in their story. I applaud the way that it paints fostering in colour. Yes, it’s twee at times, yes not fully realistic, but that’s not the point of the show.

It’s easy Sunday evening watching, but I wonder, just wonder, whether this Sunday evening watching can help just one more person pick up the phone and start to explore their own fostering journey…

¹The Fostering Network. 2024. New Ofsted data shows number of foster carers in England declining for third year running. Available online. [Accessed 6 June 2025]