Sophie Willan: ‘Right Said Fred have no sense of humour at all’

‘People often think I’m a bit of battle axe. There’s always an assumption that you must be a difficult battle axe because you’re a woman who’s got a plan.’

Whatever misconception people have of Sophie Willan, her plan couldn’t be going any better.

The second series of her Bafta-winning Alma’s Not Normal has been hailed as the comedy of the decade, which somehow doesn’t feel like high-praise enough. She’s also currently starring in the BBC’s most successful drama of 2024 alongside David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell-Martin in Ludwig and she is by far the most exciting talent in Britain today.

But as a Care Leaver, Sophie’s drive for success came when the Conservative Party came into power in 2010, cutting funding for welfare and mental health services, demonising anyone who relied on them. That’s the motivation behind Alma’s Not Normal, the comedy-drama which will your heart with joy and break it in the blink of an eye.

It follows Alma, an ambitious Boltonian with stars in her eyes and a fag in her hand, whose fragile mum Lin (played by Siobhan Finneran) struggles with addiction. Subsequently, after growing up in care, she’s raised by her formidable grandma Joan, who in series 2 is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Alma’s Not Normal could easily be the premise of a tragedy but it’s hopeful and astonishingly funny, based loosely on Sophie’s own experiences with the care system.

‘I really want to educate people on empathy,’ she says. ‘After the first series, they started showing Alma’s Not Normal in universities to students studying social work so that felt massive – much more important than winning a Bafta.’

Sophie’s keen to stress she’s very different to Alma. The comedy is loosely based on her own experience but still she’s poured plenty of trauma into Alma’s Not Normal, their respective journeys sharing obvious parallels in their childhoods, ambition and eventually their grief.

Rarely will Sophie give an interview and not discuss her grandma Denise with unbridled adoration, including this one. So much so, she credits Denise for lighting the fire in her to eventually follow her dreams.

‘She was very encouraging. I was very good at twerking when I was way too young, and she’d get me at barbecues for PTAs and say, “show them your twerk!” I can’t imagine how uncomfortable I must have made everybody,’ she laughs.

But Denise died soon after the first series of Alma’s Not Normal aired on BBC and just a year later Sophie was writing the death of Alma’s grandma Joan.

‘It was really important to show it how I’d experienced people dying of cancer, the mundane of the humour and the fact that they often get asked when they’re dying, we never get to see that,’ says Sophie.

Still though, she’s human. Finding the light in death when you’re in the depth of grief wasn’t always easy. Sophie had to find a safe place, a remedy for when writing Alma’s Not Normal got too heavy.

‘I went to a lot of spa breaks,’ she smiles. ‘I spent a lot of my money on spas. But it was difficult.

‘I got a dog as well and that did help. Having a Cavapoo and going on long walks. I walked a lot, I found that very therapeutic.

‘Normally, you’d process and reflect back on these things five years later, that’s normally my writing process, but I didn’t really have time to do that so it was different. But I think actually was helpful, because it sped up me processing it and facing it, because grief such a slow process, isn’t it?’

Moments of Alma’s Not Normal were directly lifted from Sophie’s own grief, including Joan’s spectacularly camp funeral with guests decked out in leopard print gathered to say goodbye to her song of choice, Shaggy’s Mr Bombastic.

In reality, Denise’s send-off was even camper.

I spent a lot of my money on spas

‘We played I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt so we picked her up and we went out with her to I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt, because she loved that. Unfortunately, Right Said Fred didn’t want to give us the rights, they thought it was cheapening the song. He’s not got a sense of humour at all, which is dead surprising given the lyrics.’

This summer Sophie was scheduled to be in conversation with Big Boys writer Jack Rooke at the Edinburgh TV Festival. She was in the room ready to go until she suddenly felt so ill she had to abandon ship moments before she was meant to be on stage.

Rooke flew solo and shared his frustration at the discrepancy between the funding for comedies and dramas. Dramas often get more than 10 times the budget of comedy, broadcasters chasing huge overnight ratings and underestimating the impact of great comedy which will be binged for decades by generations to come.

‘You can trace it back to a class issue still,’ says Sophie. ‘When we get further up the echelons of those TV channels it still is quite elitist and posh. Doing a drama where everyone’s been to Rada or whatever, Julian Fellows is writing, it’s very different setup to comedy which actually often comes from working class communities and working men’s clubs.

‘Mine and Jack’s shows are seen as lesser, but they’re just as dramatic and you can follow those narratives. I think it is a class snobbery that still lingers, it’s a bit old fashioned.’

Earlier this year Sophie dove straight into the traditionally testosterone-heavy format of the panel show as team captain on the revived music game show Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

Buzzcocks was TV gold for millennials, hosted by Mark Lamarr and then Simon Amstell with team captains Phil Jupitus, Sean Hughes, Bill Bailey and Noel Fielding.

But it was a boy’s club that famously took no prisoners, roasting its guests sometimes to the point they’d walk out. Panel shows traditionally have always been a boy’s club, called out by comedians such as Katherine Ryan and Bridget Christie – the latter refusing to appear on any if she was the only female in an episode.

‘Panel shows are definitely becoming less rigid and male, which is a good thing,’ says Sophie. ‘I’ve enjoyed doing Buzzcocks, and I loved Taskmaster.

‘The format is more open now you’re not just trying to get your joke in. That whole Mock The Week, aggressive testosterone, who can speak, get their joke in faster, I think it looks really contrived, it’s not enjoyable to watch and it’s not enjoyable to do. It was never interesting to me, that sort of thing.

‘Panel shows I’ve decided to do feel more free, a bit more open and less male dominated.’

Two Baftas in the bag, likely a third on the way in 2025 given the reaction to Alma’s Not Normal, the world is at Sophie’s feet but, still, she’s not taking anything for granted.

‘I don’t think it’s all secure for life,’ she concedes. ‘I’m aware of how these careers work. You’re hot one minute, you’re not the next so you just have to keep plodding away.’

Granted, longevity might not be guaranteed after winning a Bafta but life has changed dramatically beyond the obvious fame, success and money.

‘I suppose the good thing is you just don’t have to fight for things as much, which is really brilliant. Before [the Bafta] I had to fight to be in the room, whereas I feel like you just get treated a bit more like a white, middle class man.

‘I don’t think that’s just a Bafta thing though, the world’s changed. My age has changed, and there was a lot more mansplaining going on, wasn’t there?

‘But the Bafta probably helped.’