Debbie Horsfield, The Forsytes, Season 1

Released March 29, 2026 NaN:NaN:NaN

WARNING: This episode contains spoilers for Episode 2 of The Forsytes Season 1.

Screenwriter Debbie Horsfield was last on the podcast in 2019 to talk about the series finale of her adaptation of Poldark. Today we welcome her back to talk about her latest project, The Forsytes. In this episode, Debbie discusses the choices she made reimagining John Galsworthy’s novels about the landmark British family saga for a modern audience.

Debbie Horsfield, The Forsytes, Season 1| MASTERPIECE Studio

This script has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

At the recent ball celebrating June Forsyte’s 18th birthday, the simple act of spilling wine on June’s gown sets in motion a series of events that unearths some very inconvenient truths, hidden desires, and secret longings. Summoned to the Forsyte household to repair June's gown, dressmaker Louisa Byrne comes face to face with none other than her former lover, young Jolyon Forsyte, with whom she had a whirlwind romance in Venice 10 years earlier. The following morning, Frances — June's mother and now Jo's wife — pays Louisa a visit at her shop, only to discover that Louisa has two young twins... one of whom is named Jolyon, after his father. In the decade since her romance with Jo, Louisa has taken great pains to conceal their existence from their father... and their father's identity from her children.

CLIP

Jos: Who was that lady who just called?

Holly: Did she upset you?

Louisa: No, no, not at all, I just um… Come here and take your linctus.

Holly: It’s horrible.

Louisa: And so is whooping cough.

Meanwhile, major changes are afoot at the family business, Forsyte & Co, as Jolyon Sr. announces he is passing the reins to his son, Jolyon. However, these shifting tides are not without their crashing waves as Jolyon Sr’s younger brother James and his son Soames are not at all pleased with this news.

CLIP

James: The point is, there is no prior instance of a chairman resigning.

Soames: No.

James: And therefore no precedent for the eldest son’s accession before his father’s death. So in the case of Jo…

Soames: Increasingly at odds with the aims of the firm?

James: If it were bought before the board how much further he might deviate, how that could endanger the future of the company..

Soames: The sheer insanity of prizing tradition over merit. It’s archaic, it’s wasteful, and if it goes ahead, a missed opportunity.

James: It is not a foregone conclusion, I will insist it be brought before the board. And in the meantime, we build the case against Jo.

But revenge and ambition aren’t the only things on Soames’ mind. In an act of rebellion of sorts, Soames has been courting the free-spirited ballet dancer, Irene Heron. Their budding romance appears to offer each of them something they desire — Soames, a breath of fresh air and distance from his overpowering family, and Irene, love and security in the wake of her father’s death and sudden loss of fortune.

CLIP

Irene: When we lived in Paris, we used to picnic by the Seine.

Soames: You were happy there.

Irene: When my mother was alive and I could watch her dance.

Soames: And you were destined to follow in her footsteps?

Irene: As you were destined to follow your father’s?

Soames: I seem to have a talent for numbers. In their own way they have a magic which intrigues me.

Irene: You make them sound quite mysterious.

Soames: Well they are. But also immensely practical. Like you, one learns techniques, one practices one’s craft. But beyond that, one learns to trust one’s instincts.

Irene: Exactly that.

Soames: Not that I lay claim to any form of artistry.

Irene: Perhaps you underestimate yourself.

Today, we’re joined by The Forsytes screenwriter and executive producer Debbie Horsfield to talk about the choices she made reimagining John Galsworthy’s novels of the landmark British family saga for a modern audience.

Jace Lacob: And this week we are joined by The Forsytes writer and executive producer Debbie Horsfield. Welcome.

Debbie Horsfield: Thank you so much.

Jace Lacob: You were last on the podcast way back in 2019 for the series finale of Poldark, the period drama you wrote and created, adapting it from Winston Graham's novels. Were back in 2026 with another adaptation, a reimagining of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga. What about Galsworthy's novels made it the perfect project for you?

Debbie Horsfield: As you say, I was with you in 2019 after doing five series of Poldark and after that, Mammoth Screen, who are the company that made Poldark, we were thinking about what our next project should be and did we have any favorite books that we would like to look at? Not necessarily to do a straight adaptation, but to kind of look at the historical period or the territory that those books covered. And we all loved The Forsyte Saga. But of course, there have been two other amazing adaptations, and we felt that we didn't really want to just do a straight adaptation.

So, we were looking at, what was it about the books that we were really intrigued by, really fascinated by? It's a really interesting period in history, in particular for women. And that was something that wasn't necessarily fully explored in the novels, the fact that women were beginning to actually get slightly more agency in their lives, weren't totally and exclusively dependent on marriage in order to have any kind of power or control over their lives. This particular period in history marks the beginning of the women's suffrage movement. There was also, within our period, the Married Women's Property Act, which allowed women to keep any property they had on marriage, rather than it all becoming the sole property of their husband.

So, we thought this was an interesting period to investigate. And we also felt that a lot of the female characters in the books were drawn in less detail, shall we say, than the male characters. And we thought, well, here's an opportunity. Let's explore what their hinterland is, what their lives may have been like. So, I think that that was our starting point, really.

Jace Lacob: So, like The Forsytes, Poldark had a sprawling cast and a story that took place over decades. What lessons from making Poldark, your first time adapting someone else's work, did you then apply to The Forsytes? What did that experience teach you in terms of adaptation, whether it's a strict adaptation or a reimagining in this case?

Debbie Horsfield: So I think with the Poldark novels, they're quite sprawling, they go off in all kinds of different directions. Winston Graham likes to follow one story and then switch to a different story. And we realized very quickly on Poldark that we needed to tether all of the stories to one central character, which is obviously Ross Poldark. It's slightly different in The Forsytes because it very much is an ensemble piece. It is actually about family, it's about generations, it's about the interplay between the generations. So, it was about setting up what the areas of antagonism were going to be.

Now, in the books, there are many, many, many characters that we haven't used. In one generation there are like, nine siblings. And we just felt that there is no way we could follow so many characters. So we decided to create a situation which for us kind of encapsulated a lot of the rivalry within that generation, but concentrating on two brothers who we decided that we would make them live side by side, supposedly amicably, but actually in constant rivalry.

And just that near proximity allowed us to have them always kind of peeking out to see what each other was doing, and one of the stories that we go for later is who gets electricity the first. Who has the best crockery? It's that kind of rivalry, quite petty sometimes between family members, that we actually thought would be really, really fun to explore. So, it's a different challenge to Poldark, actually, because there is no one central character to tether all of the stories. We actually follow lots of people's stories. And sometimes that was quite a challenge just making sure everybody gets well served.

Jace Lacob: I'm glad you mentioned the physical repositioning of their households next to each other, because it does create this inescapable lack of distance between them. And this is ultimately a story of boardrooms, bedrooms, and drawing rooms.

Debbie Horsfield: Yes, it is. That's very well put, actually.

Jace Lacob: The professional and domestic worlds of this family sort of uncomfortably intertwined.

Debbie Horsfield: Yes. So, one of the other things we decided was that in the novels, all of the male siblings in the older generation, they are in different businesses. Everybody is vying to say that their business is the most successful. We thought it would be interesting to put them all into one family firm and actually see the rivalry play out on a daily basis in the offices, in the boardroom. And it made it just that easier to follow and also just to kind of illustrate how people just really kind of get on each other's nerves, both in a domestic setting but also in an office setting.

Jace Lacob: So, as we said at the outset, this is a re-imagining of The Forsyte Saga, and I liken it to a mix tape. You're taking elements of Galsworthy's plot, you're remixing it, you're adding, you're expanding characters. And with any adaptation or even reimagining, there's a fine line to walk between keeping the text sacrosanct and more fluid, and just using it as a blueprint on which to build a story. So how did you decide, then, which elements of Galsworthy's novels had to be in your version, and which could be jettisoned?

Debbie Horsfield: We actually picked our favorite bits, things that we wanted to explore further. I guess the most obvious one is the relationship between Soames and Irene. It's the one that everybody remembers because it's a pretty toxic relationship that they have. But I wanted to have a look at how a man like Soames even came into being. What was it about his society at that time, the expectations of society, his home life, the example set by his parents, the demands of the job? What made him the man that he became? Because he's essentially a bit of a control freak but doesn't see anything wrong with that. In his own terms, in his own society and in the kind of legal framing of his society, he doesn't see that he's done anything wrong. He doesn't see that controlling his wife to the degree that he does, is anything other than what any husband does at that particular era. So that was one relationship we really did want to interrogate.

In the books, Irene is quite a shadowy figure. She's described as being incredibly beautiful, men fall in love with her. She's always described from a male perspective. But we don't really understand what makes her tick. In the book, she meets Soames. It's quite clear she doesn't want to marry him. He falls besottedly in love with her and courts her for a couple of years, with her continuing to say no. And then with no real obvious reason, one day she says yes and they get married. And guess what? It's a disaster. So I wanted to just interrogate that a little more and think, well, what if there had been a point in their relationship where there was hope? What if she was in love with him to begin with? What if there was a side to Soames, a more golden side that she thought perhaps she could draw out, and there was a better man in there that she could access? And I felt we needed to see that side of him before we then leant back into the dark side of him. I think that was the relationship that I found the most intriguing and wanted to spend more time with.

Jace Lacob: I think most people familiar with these stories would, yes, assume Soames and Irene would be a major component of this story. What surprised me was the character of Frances Forsyte, played by Tuppence Middleton. And she just exists as a footnote in Galsworthy's series. She just gets sort of a mention in a family tree offhandedly. But we kick off the series with Frances and Jo's wedding, establishing her as an anchor for this series. What was behind your invention of Frances's character and how does she exist in contrast to the other Forsytes?

Debbie Horsfield: Well, I mean, as you say, she does not exist in the books other than in a family tree. But I was again intrigued to think what kind of woman was she? The first wife, the rejected wife. But what kind of woman would she have had to be to basically thrive in that environment? As an upper middle class woman in a wealthy family and the wife of an eldest son, who would she be? What would she use in order to have any kind of agency or power? And would we sympathize with her? What would we feel about that character?

So, yes, she is a completely invented character within the Goldsworthy world. But I think she represents one option for how women can take charge of their destiny. Marriage is a way that they can exert some power over their lives by running a household, being quite political sometimes. That's what we show Frances as being, quite political in terms of knowing the right people, just kind of manipulating in subtle ways to get what she wants for her husband and therefore get what she wants for herself. And yeah, it was great to have a free hand with that, but I think that we absolutely wanted it to be very indicative of what a woman in her position would have to do.

Jace Lacob: How did you seize upon Frances and Jo's wedding as the ideal opening for the series? Is it an inflection point for this family?

Debbie Horsfield: I think so. Obviously, we learn quite quickly that in fact, Jo, there is a backstory to Jo, the woman who he fell in love with when he was off on his grand tour. And I think what we wanted to establish, first of all, was the normality, the status quo— this is what the Forsytes are, this is what they represent, this is how they work, before we introduce the disruptive influence of Louisa, the lost love and mother of children. We needed to establish what was going to be disrupted before we introduced the disruptor.

MIDROLL

Jace Lacob: And we’re back with The Forsytes screenwriter and executive producer, Debbie Horsfield. Some, Lady Carteret among them, might look upon the Forsytes as sort of up jumped tradesmen. We won't go there, of course. But, Lady Carteret is played by the brilliant Susan Hampshire, who played Fleur Forsyte in the 1967 adaptation, and Susan was cast late in the process. Were you looking to have her provide a thematic link to that earlier version of The Forsyte Saga?

Debbie Horsfield: I mean, we were so thrilled when she considered it because, what we had done on Poldark actually, we'd had Robin Ellis, who had played the first Ross, he agreed to do a part in our series, which was wonderful. And so I guess that's what inspired us to think, well, maybe we could ask Susan and we were thrilled when she agreed. And I think she's just wonderful, absolutely wonderful in it. And she loved the fact that she was appearing in a version many, many years after the first one came out.

Jace Lacob: We talked a little bit about Irene Heron. I want to talk more about Irene. She's played rather magnificently here by Millie Gibson. And you've reinterpreted the character as a ballet dancer whose body and art are intertwined. How did you look to imagine Irene, and how did you settle on the notion of her being a Victorian era ballet dancer?

Debbie Horsfield: So, I wanted her to have something that suggested that she not just had a kind of artistic, creative soul, but that actually she expressed this creativity in a more obvious way than simply maybe just playing the piano, because she does play the piano in, in the novels. But it felt a little bit like Lucy Honeychurch in Room with a View, where she kind of loses herself when she's playing the piano.

And I just thought, is there something even more visually exciting that we can use? And of course, ballet at the time, it's much more daring to be a dancer then than it subsequently was, because ballet hadn't really taken off in England at that point. It was much more common in Paris, but then the issue with that is that a lot of the dancers were regarded as prostitutes. So I wanted something which would already prevent Soames from wanting to introduce her to his family, the “all” of her, he keeps that secret from them. They don't find that out about her because ultimately he knows that they would disapprove.

But it was a really lovely detail to think that she's from a slightly bohemian background. She doesn't see anything wrong with that. And he really kind of recoils against it. So the tension is there. You know that this is a ticking time bomb and at some point, one or the other is going to lose

Jace Lacob: I do love that you trade Beethoven's piano sonatas for pirouettes for Irene. I am a Lucy Honeychurch fan.

Debbie Horsfield: Oh, me too. Me too. But then I just thought, you can't improve on perfection, and that was.

Jace Lacob: So, The Forsytes marks your reunion with former Poldark star Eleanor Tomlinson, who trades Demelza's role as mistress of Nampara for dressmaker Louisa Byrne’s seamstress needle. Did you write the part of Louisa specifically with Eleanor in mind?

Debbie Horsfield: I didn't, but I think I kind of hoped that she might be interested. Eleanor and I have had a great relationship. She was the most wonderful Demelza. And when we asked her if she would be interested, we were completely thrilled that she said yes. I wanted it to be a different kind of role for her. I think that there are similarities in as much as she's not an obvious or straightforward heroine and she has her own struggles. But as a character who comes in contrast to the Forsytes who actually really knows what hard work is, really knows what hardship and deprivation is, I have to say, yeah, I could imagine how Eleanor would play that. And she was amazing.

Jace Lacob: We learned about the Venetian romance between Jolyon and Louisa, and indeed about its aftermath, that Jo unknowingly has two children, the twins. How does Venice capture the love between Jo and Louisa, one that is rooted in artistic and romantic freedom?

Debbie Horsfield: It's one of my favorite bits, really, because we actually got to go to Venice, which I never thought we would do. Venice is a particular favorite place of mine, so I kind of knew where in my imagination I would be setting the scenes. But I was convinced that we'd probably be filming over some horrible little bridge over a dirty canal in Bristol near to where we shoot and doing the rest with CGI. But it turned out that we could actually go to Venice for half a day's shoot.

And I just think it adds this most beautiful kind of shimmer to the story. It literally shimmers, actually. The water, the sky, the light, it's so evocative of first love, really, of carefree first love. And as you say, yes, it's evocative also of Jo's passion for art, for painting. I had him painting on a jetty overlooking the view that painters like Monet and Whistler and all of those Impressionist painters had painted that view at one time or another. And we managed to get Jo there at five am on a summer's morning painting at his easel. And I couldn't quite believe that we did, but we managed it.

Jace Lacob: I mean, that is, to me, one of my favorite sequences in the show. We get a little taste of it, and we come back to Venice for some more. And I think at first I thought to myself, are they actually, oh, they are actually there.

Debbie Horsfield: There they are, yes absolutely we were. Yes.

Jace Lacob: And it's incredible to see. With Jolyon Sr. and James, we have this age old battle between the heir and the spare. But one of the dynamics that I love most in the show is actually between Jo Sr. and Frances, his daughter in law. In a lot of aspects, they seem more suited to each other than Frances and Young Jo. What did you make of the rapport between Jolyon Sr. and Frances, and what do Stephen and Tuppence bring to these scenes?

Debbie Horsfield: Well, they love working together, and you're absolutely right. And that's what I wanted. I wanted people to think, well, I can see why Jolyon Sr. chose Frances for his son because she has all of the qualities to prime him for being a chairman, taking his place within society. But actually, he'd have been better off marrying her himself. So in a way, there's a sense that he made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of his son and for the sake of the company, and arranged this marriage with Frances.

But yeah, you're absolutely right. They have this lovely relationship where in some ways, they're kind of in cahoots with each other because they both have the same aim; they want Jo to be the best that he can possibly be. And they both know that he's not really ideally suited either to the job that he's doing, and he's certainly not really suited to being the chairman of a company that only cares about making money. And yet, they both need him to be that. So they're kind of working together in order to make that happen.

Jace Lacob: While Episode One begins with Frances's wedding, we jump ahead in time, and her daughter June is now 18, about to be presented to society. How does June represent the next generation's sense of rebellion, a sense that they must abandon their parents’ principles for ones of their own?

Debbie Horsfield: Well, I think the great thing about any multi-generational story is that actually, that's what every generation does. Every generation thinks it's the first people to rebel, the first people to discover all of the vices of teenage years, and are kind of shocked to discover that actually their parents had got there before them. So, yes, June, of course, is perfectly primed to, from her mother's point of view, her mother wants her to make a good match. And June is very typical of her generation in as much as it's all about following the heart.

And in a way, that is what I think is one of the main themes of the series, I think, is, do you follow your heart or do you follow your head? And actually, even if you follow your heart, does it necessarily guarantee happiness? Equally, if you do the sensible thing and are ruled by the head, does that necessarily mean disaster? As the stories play out, those questions are asked and continue to be asked and continue to be answered. So yes, June, of course, full of the recklessness of youth, thinks she knows it all, thinks that she has control of her own destiny, thinks it's all about falling in love, and goes on a journey to see how those notions are challenged.

Jace Lacob: So we begin Episode One, “The Wedding”, Frances and Jo formed this union. June is brought into their family and they create this blended family. June is presented to society, and by Episode Two, Frances discovers that Jo has children with Louisa, which sort of puts everything she's built thus far, in danger. Should viewers see red flags here, a sense that Frances might do anything and everything in her power to hold on to what she has?

Debbie Horsfield: Well, I hope primarily people will sympathize with her because, yes, although she seems to be manipulative, wanting to control people's destinies. On the other hand, she has vulnerabilities of her own. And I hope we get the sense that she genuinely cares about Jo. And yes, to be so close to all her dreams fulfilled, I mean, it's a shocking thing to discover that your partner has two children, because she's not a horrible woman. She's not even unsympathetic to Louisa. She just sees that they're both in a really horrendous situation and that it's going to be really difficult to find a solution which is going to please everybody. She knows that's impossible.

Jace Lacob: So we end Episode Two with the truth about the children known not just by Jo and Frances, but also by June and Ann at this point. How does this knowledge power the story engine for the remainder of Series One?

Debbie Horsfield: Well, I think the question everybody is asking is how long before everybody else finds out? Because obviously, the idea that James is looking to find a way to discredit Jo so that his own son, Soames, can take over as the chairman elect of the company. So the minute James finds out, then there is that ammunition. And obviously, as a family, the Forsytes are going to try and contain this because despite the fact that it was not uncommon in that era, it was still regarded as scandalous. And we have the situation where the point is made that the Forsytes’ company is dependent upon reputation, on its good name, upon trust. And essentially, if anything can be weaponized to discredit Jo in order to make him appear less suitable to be the chairman, it is going to be weaponized. And that is exactly what him having two illegitimate children provides.

Jace Lacob: The final image of Episode Two plays with that notion of the Forsytes being neighbors in this version, as Jo and Soames stand on their respective front porches. And they might be standing side by side, but they are in separate worlds here— Jo tormented and Soames triumphant. How does this final image play with the cousins’ rivalry and the widening chasm in this family?

Debbie Horsfield: So, the rivalry is felt only really by Soames. Jo isn't particularly… he doesn't have the ambitions to be the chairman, really. He doesn't have a sense of rivalry with his cousin. But obviously Soames feels that rivalry, even though he doesn't take Jo particularly seriously. Jo is dismissed in the wider family as an artist. That isn't a respected profession. So yes, that final image is very telling because they are side by side. And I think it's illustrative of the fact that they are such different personalities and that in a way they've been primed to be rivals. But in fact, the rivalry is only felt in one direction.

Jace Lacob: Oh, and it is felt.

Debbie Horsfield: Yes, definitely.

Jace Lacob: Meenu Gaur directed the first two episodes of The Forsytes, and she sets the visual palette for the series. What types of conversations did you have with Meenu in terms of shots like that one with the two men on the front porches? What did Meenu bring to the series in terms of the visual language?

Debbie Horsfield: That particular image was scripted. But we had lots of conversations, not just with Meenu, the director, but also with the designer, the costume designer, the makeup designer, in order to just really interrogate the look of the show, the tone of the show. Obviously, we wanted it to be historically accurate. So, we have a historical advisor, but obviously the designer, the costume designer, makeup designer, they are absolutely on top of what would be historically accurate for that period.

And, there's lots of things that I, writing the script, hadn't realized that would complicate the shooting process. And as an example of that, I would say that we learned from the costume department that women of that class and background and level of wealth in society would actually change maybe four, five times a day. So you can imagine being historically accurate, what that actually would mean for the costume department, for the makeup department. I actually had to learn to maybe not have so many different time changes within a day, because in order to keep it accurate, we would have to see those constant costume changes. And when I come to write subsequent series, that was something absolutely to bear in mind.

Jace Lacob: Whether you are intimately familiar with Galsworthy's story or fresh to this world, what can viewers expect from the remainder of Series One?

Debbie Horsfield: For me, this is an exploration of family conflict, of generational conflict. Not just conflict either, intergenerational relationships have always fascinated me, and I think it doesn't go out of fashion, that. I think we all experience intergenerational conflict and it's something that everybody can relate to now. And 200 years, 300, 400 years ago, people could still relate to it.

So there is a lot of fun to be had with that conflict. But ultimately, I think it's really this tension between do you follow your heart or do you let the head rule the heart? That's the question that really plays out throughout the rest of the series, and with a lot of conflict, with a lot of joy as well, you know, a lot of romance. There is a lot of romance in this story. And I don't want to shortchange that or make it sound like it's grim because it really isn't. There's some really engaging love stories that we follow. So that alongside the generational tensions, I think there's hopefully a lot to enjoy.

Jace Lacob: Debbie Horsfield, thank you so very much.

Debbie Horsfield: You're welcome.

Next time, Soames introduces Irene to his family.

CLIP

Soames: Miss Heron, Mrs. Heron, my family.

Irene: How d’you do?

Soames: Forgive me, I fear we’re a formidable prospect.

Clarissa: Not at all. I’m delighted to make the acquaintance of such a distinguished family.

Join us next week as we talk with actor Millie Gibson about what her character Irene’s new relationship with Soames Forsytes means for her future.

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