{"id":422428,"date":"2026-02-12T21:29:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422428\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T21:29:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:29:38","slug":"lisa-mcgee-on-netflixs-how-to-get-to-heaven-from-belfast-derry-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422428\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisa McGee On Netflix’s ‘How To Get To Heaven From Belfast’ & ‘Derry Girls’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHow to Get to Heaven from Belfast<\/a> is \u201cwish fulfilment\u201d for creator Lisa McGee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019d love to go on one of these adventures with my friends,\u201d McGee told Deadline at London\u2019s Langham Hotel a day before the Netflix<\/a> comedy thriller launched. \u201cI\u2019d love to solve a mystery. I think a lot of women are really into true crime and I just thought, \u2018Well I\u2019ll never get a chance to solve a mystery so let\u2019s write a show instead\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee tells us she \u201choovers\u201d up true crime, which she believes has traditionally been viewed as a male-dominated genre but in fact is beloved by women around the world. Her favorites include S-Town from the producers of Serial, Sweet Bobby and West Cork.<\/p>\n

\n\tA deep love of true crime came in handy when McGee put together How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. Starring Roisin Gallagher, Sin\u00e9ad Keenan and Caoilfhionn Dunne, who McGee said had \u201censemble chemistry\u201d and \u201cperfectly hit the right tone,\u201d the show follows clever, chaotic TV writer Saoirse, glamorous, stressed-out mother of three Robyn, and dependable, inhibited carer Dara, who have been a tight-knit group since school. Now in their late 30s, they are about to embark on the most thrilling adventure of their lives. When an email arrives, telling them about the death of the estranged fourth member of their childhood gang, a series of eerie events at her wake set them on an odyssey through Ireland and beyond.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTo walk that line as an actor and go from the really stupid stuff to the more emotional stuff is so hard,\u201d McGee said of the main cast. \u201cThey sell everything. They sell the stupid bits and they sell the really sad bits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA \u201ccreepy experience at school\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tImage: Netflix\/Christopher Barr \u00a9 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee\u2019s hit Channel 4 sitcom Derry Girls<\/a> is based on the Northern Irish scribe\u2019s teenage years and, while she jokes that she is \u201cnarcissistic\u201d and finds it \u201creally hard not to put myself in a story,\u201d How to Get to Heaven also draws from her younger day, this time a \u201ccreepy experience at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy old school moved buildings and the old one which had been a convent was left empty,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019d heard this was now a place where ghosthunters go and asked my husband to drive me and it looked like a zombie apocalypse. I was walking down a path all overgrown and I just had this feeling I was going to bump into myself as a teenager. I remember thinking, \u2018Well, that\u2019s quite a cool, creepy idea\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe How to Get to Heaven character Saoirse, who writes a fictional detective show called Murder Code, is therefore loosely based on McGee, while her two friends are based on the creator\u2019s real life besties.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Saoirse] was the first character I wrote and it was an easy way in. But she\u2019s much more complicated and interesting than I am, which is always the way.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee started writing the How to Get to Heaven pilot before the third and final season of Derry Girls \u2013 one of the most watched and critically acclaimed British and Irish comedies of a generation \u2013 had even filmed. \u201cI needed to write this because I needed to write something that wasn\u2019t Derry Girls,\u201d she added. \u201cI needed [the Derry Girls characters] to stop talking in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne might think creating a big budget Netflix series would be trickier than a Channel 4 sitcom but McGee, who oversaw a writers\u2019 room for the first time on How to Get to Heaven but wrote Derry Girls solo, is adamant that the latter was more difficult.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDerry Girls is really tough to write,\u201d she added. \u201cWriting a sitcom where no one learns anything and these characters don\u2019t really develop until the very end is really tough. I couldn\u2019t spin anything to the end of the next episode. With How to Get to Heaven you can leave something for episode five.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee wrote the first three How to Get to Heaven eps but enlisted her writers\u2019 room for the middle blocks. While acknowledging writers\u2019 rooms are less in vogue in the UK, McGee loved it. The Great writer Ava Pickett provided \u201cgorgeous emotional range,\u201d Bron\u00e1gh Taggart (Blue Lights) specialized in the \u201cthis is too stupid\u201d moments and Tobias Beer (The Deceived), McGee\u2019s husband, brought some horror chops.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee said: \u201cFor Derry Girls I didn\u2019t have that and that was fine because it was so personal, but this is the way I\u2019d want to do it from now on \u2013 it\u2019s better having other writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cpersonal\u201d nature of her recent shows comes in part from McGee\u2019s youth growing up in the Irish Troubles, which is of course central to Derry Girls and rears its head \u201cthematically\u201d in How to Get to Heaven, which is about \u201chow you manage the past\u201d and \u201cghosts,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe echo of The Troubles is always there,\u201d added McGee. \u201cThe characters are from there so I guess it\u2019s there in the subtext.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee has no qualms with introducing this \u201csubtext\u201d into her comedy. \u201cI think it\u2019s a lovely bonus,\u201d she added. \u201c[Northern Irish writers] have this extra layer of stuff that we don\u2019t have to work hard for. I think it\u2019s amazing for comedy.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tSwitching from Channel 4 to Netflix<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLisa McGee. Image: Henry Nicholls\/AFP via Getty<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee forged How to Get to Heaven with a small team at regular producing partner Hat Trick and she is full of praise for Netflix, which \u201cdidn\u2019t interfere\u201d apart from providing an \u201coutside eye\u201d on certain scenes, and of course offering up a handsome budget.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut How to Get to Heaven\u2019s journey is an unusual one. In what was an incredibly rare occurence, Channel 4 announced How to Get to Heaven before the show switched to Netflix, with Channel 4 citing \u201cchanges in editorial direction as the development process progressed, coupled with rising costs and the recent cooling in the U.S. co-production market.\u201d That news came just after the U.S. writers strike, when getting British and Irish drama to screen was harder than it had ever been.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a really bad time,\u201d said McGee. \u201cThis traditional way of making a TV show [via a broadcaster] just stopped overnight. When I started writing the pilot I didn\u2019t really know where it was going and then quite quickly myself and [EP] Liz [Lewin] realized the scale of it was different and it wasn\u2019t a Channel 4 show. If I was to go back I would work that out earlier, but I didn\u2019t know what way the story was going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGee stresses that the show was only on spec and wasn\u2019t technically in development with Channel 4 when it switched. She says Netflix was \u201c100% the right place for this show\u201d but would love to work with Channel 4 soon. Luckily for McGee, Channel 4 comedy boss Charlie Perkins recently told us<\/a>: \u201cOur relationship with Lisa is still so strong. Life is long and hopefully we\u2019ll do something else together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPercolating next in McGee\u2019s mind is a comedy mockumentary idea \u2013 after Catherine O\u2019Hara\u2019s death, she went back and watched mid-1990s American comedy Waiting for Guffman \u2013 along with a second season of How to Get to Heaven, which she has already started thinking about.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve left it open for a second series but it\u2019s all completely down to how many people watch,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019d love to do one.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHopefully, McGee gets her second dose of \u201cwish fulfilment\u201d sometime soon. <\/p>\n

\n\tHow to Get to Heaven launches today on Netflix worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is \u201cwish fulfilment\u201d for creator Lisa McGee. \u201cI\u2019d love to go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6933,96,59,155477,155478,155243,392,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-422428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-derry-girls","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-hat-trick-productions","tag-how-to-get-to-heaven-from-belfast","tag-lisa-mcgee","tag-netflix","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}