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| Sophie Willan: who are you calling a northern working-class comic? | Sophie Willan: who are you calling a northern working-class comic? |
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| Her childhood in care, her mother’s heroin addiction, her days as a sex worker … Bolton comedian Sophie Willan is turning the details of her life into dazzling standup | |
| Brian Logan | |
| Tue 9 Jan 2018 18.21 GMT | |
| Last modified on Wed 10 Jan 2018 10.22 GMT | |
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| It’s great to have Sophie Willan’s working-class voice in the comedy industry. That’s not (just) me talking, that’s how “loads of people” have greeted the Lancastrian since her standup debut in 2016. “Some people are quite up for being pigeonholed like that,” says Willan. “But I think nuance is important.” | It’s great to have Sophie Willan’s working-class voice in the comedy industry. That’s not (just) me talking, that’s how “loads of people” have greeted the Lancastrian since her standup debut in 2016. “Some people are quite up for being pigeonholed like that,” says Willan. “But I think nuance is important.” |
| What do onlookers mean when they peg Willan as “northern” and “working-class”? How accurately can those labels describe any of us? Those are the questions posed by her second show, Branded, which tours next month. With it, Willan enacts phase two of her manifesto, as she calls it, to bring authentic working-class voices into the mainstream – while questioning why those voices are momentarily hip again. | What do onlookers mean when they peg Willan as “northern” and “working-class”? How accurately can those labels describe any of us? Those are the questions posed by her second show, Branded, which tours next month. With it, Willan enacts phase two of her manifesto, as she calls it, to bring authentic working-class voices into the mainstream – while questioning why those voices are momentarily hip again. |
| Branded was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy award last summer. It’s a terrific hour of personal-meets-political standup, gleefully complicating notions of class, feminism and northern identity, even as it masquerades as blunt Boltonian good cheer. “I use my own experience as a metaphor for bigger issues,” says Willan. “I find academic political comedy isolating. It’s very clever, but is it engaging to everybody? Would my mum sit and listen to it?” | Branded was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy award last summer. It’s a terrific hour of personal-meets-political standup, gleefully complicating notions of class, feminism and northern identity, even as it masquerades as blunt Boltonian good cheer. “I use my own experience as a metaphor for bigger issues,” says Willan. “I find academic political comedy isolating. It’s very clever, but is it engaging to everybody? Would my mum sit and listen to it?” |
| What her mum would do is a moot point, given that she was a heroin addict who features in both of her daughter’s autobiographical solo shows. “I’ve not seen her for three years,” Willan says. “I don’t know where she is.” | What her mum would do is a moot point, given that she was a heroin addict who features in both of her daughter’s autobiographical solo shows. “I’ve not seen her for three years,” Willan says. “I don’t know where she is.” |
| Mum loomed largest in Willan’s first show, which recounted her childhood growing up in care. “Rude, rebellious and defiant,” are the words that dogged teenage Willan on social workers’ reports she obtained from Bolton Council. They don’t remotely describe how she is in person, or on stage, where she’s thoughtful, fun-loving and sympathetic. Her early career was forged in theatre: Willan founded then quit the Manchester-based theatre/cabaret outfit Eggs Collective, which featured on the BBC’s Performance Live last year. She then made solo theatre, including The Novice Detective, about her search for her dad – which she’s now adapting into a sitcom for children. Standup didn’t cross her mind. “I’d always been a funny human,” she says, “but I never really thought of doing it.” | Mum loomed largest in Willan’s first show, which recounted her childhood growing up in care. “Rude, rebellious and defiant,” are the words that dogged teenage Willan on social workers’ reports she obtained from Bolton Council. They don’t remotely describe how she is in person, or on stage, where she’s thoughtful, fun-loving and sympathetic. Her early career was forged in theatre: Willan founded then quit the Manchester-based theatre/cabaret outfit Eggs Collective, which featured on the BBC’s Performance Live last year. She then made solo theatre, including The Novice Detective, about her search for her dad – which she’s now adapting into a sitcom for children. Standup didn’t cross her mind. “I’d always been a funny human,” she says, “but I never really thought of doing it.” |
| Responding to advice from a producer at BBC Comedy, she took it up in 2014, challenging herself to “find a way to make it funny in five minutes that my mum was a heroin addict, without freaking people out”. She soon started to feel at home in comedy. “I’d hidden my background, and not realised I was doing it. Theatre and live art is so middle class, so dominated by one type of person. And my communication style would often be misunderstood, would be considered aggressive when I was just being direct.” | Responding to advice from a producer at BBC Comedy, she took it up in 2014, challenging herself to “find a way to make it funny in five minutes that my mum was a heroin addict, without freaking people out”. She soon started to feel at home in comedy. “I’d hidden my background, and not realised I was doing it. Theatre and live art is so middle class, so dominated by one type of person. And my communication style would often be misunderstood, would be considered aggressive when I was just being direct.” |
| Comedy may be no shangri-la for working-class artists (“It’s a pay-to-play industry now: Edinburgh costs a fortune”) but it was an improvement on theatre. And, she says, “I’ve been able to say what I wanted to say in standup. You can talk about quite dark things in a light-hearted way.” | Comedy may be no shangri-la for working-class artists (“It’s a pay-to-play industry now: Edinburgh costs a fortune”) but it was an improvement on theatre. And, she says, “I’ve been able to say what I wanted to say in standup. You can talk about quite dark things in a light-hearted way.” |
| One of those things is the period when Willan funded her arts career by working as an escort, which she addresses in Branded. She didn’t dedicate a whole show to the subject, though, because “it shouldn’t be made a big thing of. It’s just a bit of who I am.” Willan isn’t alone in broaching her experience of sex work in her comedy: Desiree Burch made a show about working as a dominatrix; Fern Brady talked about stripping. But Willan’s interest – in keeping with Branded’s theme – was in exploring how “escort” becomes just another simplistic label, a glamorous or demonised identity resistant to nuance. | One of those things is the period when Willan funded her arts career by working as an escort, which she addresses in Branded. She didn’t dedicate a whole show to the subject, though, because “it shouldn’t be made a big thing of. It’s just a bit of who I am.” Willan isn’t alone in broaching her experience of sex work in her comedy: Desiree Burch made a show about working as a dominatrix; Fern Brady talked about stripping. But Willan’s interest – in keeping with Branded’s theme – was in exploring how “escort” becomes just another simplistic label, a glamorous or demonised identity resistant to nuance. |
| Working class may be 'cool' now, but 'they want your identity and your story, but not the personality that goes with it' | Working class may be 'cool' now, but 'they want your identity and your story, but not the personality that goes with it' |
| She was nervous of addressing it onstage, mainly because her family didn’t know about it. How candid to be about her offstage life is an ongoing question for Willan. “I try to protect my family. There’s lots I’ve not said.” For her next show, due in 2019, she’s “weaning myself off retrospective family material”. But she’ll continue to explore, and fight for, working-class representation, specifically the plight of care leavers like herself. | She was nervous of addressing it onstage, mainly because her family didn’t know about it. How candid to be about her offstage life is an ongoing question for Willan. “I try to protect my family. There’s lots I’ve not said.” For her next show, due in 2019, she’s “weaning myself off retrospective family material”. But she’ll continue to explore, and fight for, working-class representation, specifically the plight of care leavers like herself. |
| Alongside the standup, Willan runs her own company, Stories of Care, a writing project for children in care and those who have just left. Unusually for a comic, her tours are Arts Council England-funded – because they come with a mentoring offer and free tickets to care leavers. Her aim is to ensure “they’re not just having their stories written, but that they’re at the forefront, and in the director’s chair”. | Alongside the standup, Willan runs her own company, Stories of Care, a writing project for children in care and those who have just left. Unusually for a comic, her tours are Arts Council England-funded – because they come with a mentoring offer and free tickets to care leavers. Her aim is to ensure “they’re not just having their stories written, but that they’re at the forefront, and in the director’s chair”. |
| She’s leading from the front in that regard, with a roster of TV projects brewing. But there’s still a class ceiling. “I’m an actress,” she says, “but I wouldn’t get cast in a Jane Austen thing. I’d never get Elizabeth Bennet – I’d get the cleaner.” Working-class may be “cool” now, she says, “but what I find is they want your identity and your story, but not the personality that goes with it. They want you to represent something – to pop you in the Caroline Aherne box, because it’s empty at the moment – rather than allowing you to come with your own point of view. It’s still very elitist. And that’s got to change.” | She’s leading from the front in that regard, with a roster of TV projects brewing. But there’s still a class ceiling. “I’m an actress,” she says, “but I wouldn’t get cast in a Jane Austen thing. I’d never get Elizabeth Bennet – I’d get the cleaner.” Working-class may be “cool” now, she says, “but what I find is they want your identity and your story, but not the personality that goes with it. They want you to represent something – to pop you in the Caroline Aherne box, because it’s empty at the moment – rather than allowing you to come with your own point of view. It’s still very elitist. And that’s got to change.” |
| Branded is at ARC, Stockton-on-Tees, on 10 February; then touring. | Branded is at ARC, Stockton-on-Tees, on 10 February; then touring. |
| Comedy | |
| Comedy | |
| (Culture) | |
| British identity and society | |
| Social care | |
| Sex trade | |
| features | |
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