Richard Curtis: Writing Yesterday - Part one

This month a new film by the award-winning screenwriter Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) will be launched in cinemas across the world. Yesterday is inspired by the music of the Beatles, and although the germ of the idea was not his, the story, its construction and the characters created are all Richard Curtis originals. Yasmeen Khan has been talking to Richard as the film developed over the last two years with the various drafts shaped, reshaped and edited. In this, the first of a special two-part In the Studio, she hears how his first attempts failed to satisfy his fiercest critic, his partner Emma, who also operates as his script editor. There’s also been the addition of a director, the Oscar-winning Danny Boyle, who provides another set of ideas that need incorporating. All the while Richard strives to ensure that the music of the Beatles, that’s been so important to him throughout his life, should remain at the heart of the final film.