THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.26 - SALLY WAINWRIGHT

Episode Date: July 21, 2016

Adam talks to Sally Wainwright, BAFTA award winning writer of Happy Valley, Last Tango In Halifax, Scott & Bailey etc. about her new project To Walk Invisible, as well as Happy Valley and of course, Brexit. CONTAINS 'HAPPY VALLEY' SERIES 1 SPOILERS! Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support. Music and jingles by Adam Buxton Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Excuse me, I'm not a fan of swearing. Is this podcast suitable for me? I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

Hey, how you doing listeners? Welcome to podcast number 26. I'm Adam Buxton, I'm your host. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm out walking with Dog Dog, who is up ahead, having a sniffle and a snaffle and a snuffle in the undergrowth. And it's very beautiful. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a country person. And it's very beautiful. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a country person, so I know I'm very familiar with all the names of the countryside stuff that you see around. And I'm walking past now quite a lot of nettles, various different varieties of nettles, big ones, shorter ones, nettles with purple bits on. And then over here on the other side, I can see many other varieties of plant and fauna life. For example, long bits of like celery with flower things on the top. And over here, grass, long grassy stuff with all furry bits that you can pull off in your fingers.

Like that is quite good. And then you get other ones where it looks as if you can pull the furry bits off, but actually you can't really. They stick on there quite well. That's quite annoying. So there you go. You know, I've got an affinity for nature, is the thing. One day I'll write a book about it.

But it's nice out here. It's been very hot the last few days. A little bit too hot, but I'm'm not complaining that's the last thing i'm going to start complaining about the fly population has dramatically increased and uh they're making life slightly more difficult buzzing buzzing around constantly settling on every surface we got the fly papers out but the fly papers are so overloaded that the flies that are captured there on end up often just plopping off in sticky lumps and then fizzing around on the surfaces beneath it It's nice, isn't it? That's summer for you. Anyway, so I'm going to

tell you about my guest on the podcast in a second. But last weekend, I was at the Latitude Festival. And if you were there or you want to hear a little bit more about that, I'll talk about it more at the end of the podcast. But right now, let me tell you about my guest today. So who is that? Well, it is Sally Wainwright. She is a writer of TV dramas and theatre plays. She grew up in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, graduated from York University where she read English. She worked as a bus driver to support herself as she honed her writing skills in the early 90s and in that decade she got a job working on a couple of legendary British soaps, The Archers on Radio 4 and Coronation Street on ITV, both great proving grounds when

it comes to storytelling and creating compelling characters. A lot of great writers have worked on those shows. Her breakthrough TV creation was called At Home With The Braithwaites, which I didn't watch at the time, but it was a huge hit on ITV in the early noughties then she did Scott and Bailey which is about two female police officers and then Last Tango in Halifax which was inspired by the experience of her own widowed mother rediscovering a lost love on the Friends Reunited website but the show show that made me aware of Sally Wainwright was Happy Valley, starring Sarah Lancashire, as a tough but likeable West Yorkshire police sergeant

who, in the first series, investigates the kidnap of a local girl. Now, if you haven't seen Happy Valley, and that sounds to you a little bit like every other TV cop show, then that's because you haven't seen Happy Valley. Is that a good sentence? I don't know. It's just, Happy Valley, I think, right, is just better written, better acted, and more surprisingly real, exciting, and occasionally very funny than any other comparable TV show that I've seen. And I'd say the same for the second series as well,

which went out in early 2016. Luckily for me, Sally works with a couple of people who enjoy this podcast. Caroline Hollick and her sister Abby, who is actually the person that originally reached out and put me in touch with Caroline. And Nicola Schindler, who is Sally's producer. So thanks to them, I was able to meet Sally and record a conversation with her a few days after the EU referendum in June this year. We met at London's Twickenham Studios, where Sally was taking a break from editing her latest project, which is called To Walk Invisible. That's a one-off drama that she wrote and directed about fellow West Yorkshire writers, Charlotte and Emily Bronte. When we spoke, Sally was suffering from a bad back and I was suffering from quite a lot of, well, nerves and ignorance about the Brontes. I didn't even realise that Charlotte Bronte originally wrote under a masculine pseudonym, Curra Bell, C-U-R-R-E-R.

Never heard that name before. And, well, you know, I was a little bit intimidated in general, which is silly because Sally was perfectly nice, but, you know, I don't know her. She's quite a softly spoken, measured, fairly serious person, I would say, And so that informed the tone of our conversation, which focused initially on To Walk Invisible, but we also talked a fair bit about Happy Valley and how she goes about creating that show

and writing in general, we talked about, before swapping our generalisations about Brexit. But right now, here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. Yes, yes, yes. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la So you are in the... Are you editing now?

We're editing, yeah. What's the name of this project? It's called To Walk Invisible. To Walk Invisible. Which is a quote from... It's about the Bronte sisters. Yeah. And Charlotte talked about walking invisible because they had to disguise who they really were.

Because women, it was considered vulgar for women to write novels at that time. And then as Charlotte became extremely famous, she was able to hide behind it, so it then became a protective thing to be able to walk invisible. But what does that mean in practical terms? When she became extremely famous... Yeah.

..people knew Curra Bell. The name Curra Bell was a very famous name, but she was still Charlotte Bronte. And nobody in her private world knew who she was other than her father and her sisters. Even her best friend didn't know that she was Curra Bell. Right. And by the time...

I think Jane Eyre, when it came out, it was an extraordinary bestseller. It was like a real massive big hit. What year did it come out? 1847. She, as Carabelle, was hugely famous, but everybody thought Carabelle was a man, so little female Charlotte Bronte at home in ours. Nobody had any idea that she was this person

who everybody had heard of. And how did her family respond when they found out? Well, her sisters knew, obviously, because they were also doing the same thing as Ellis Bell and Axon Bell. Yeah. And they consciously didn't tell the brother because he was by then very ill,

which is what the story's about, with alcoholism. And he died before he ever knew they were famous. Bramwell. What did he do? Like his sisters, he'd written since he was tiny. He'd written, it was in his bones, in his blood to write. And they had these extraordinary fantasy worlds that they developed as teenagers and they became incredibly sophisticated.

So they wrote stories about their fantasy worlds, they wrote poetry about their fantasy worlds. And he should have been one of the Bronte sisters, as it were, because he was talented enough. Well, he was very talented and he was very imaginative, but he didn't have any application. He couldn't put the hard work in like they could. So if he'd been able to develop what talent he had, he would have

been probably a famous writer. But he just sank into alcoholism and drug addiction. And is there any indication why? Was he just diffident or was he battling the same kind of demons that a lot of creative people battle? There's so many theories about why he became what he became. You know, too much was expected of him. Right. His father expected a lot from him. As the only male in the family, because he was the only male in the family, he was the only one who could actually go out and achieve things because women were, you know, so disenfranchised in so many ways.

And the only jobs that girls could do, the highest they could aspire to, was being governesses and teachers. You know, they couldn't really... They were very nervous about putting themselves out there as novelists. And so I think they transferred a lot of that expectation, certainly Charlotte did, and her vicarious ambitions onto him. So I think there was a lot of pressure on him.

But, you know, there's so many reasons why people end up like that I don't know if he just was predisposed towards addiction And so is that whole story something that's dealt with in... Yeah, I mean that's what I've chosen to concentrate on really is the last three years when they were all still alive and it was when Brownwell really was starting to go downhill and really become ill with his addictions to alcohol and arguably to opiates.

And the way I've dramatised it is that the sisters start to think about publishing novels as a real necessity to earn money because they've been unable to make money in any of the normal channels that were open to intelligent educated poor women yeah which is what they were you know they tried being governesses they tried being teachers and they hated it they found it incredibly difficult and incredibly poorly paid and so they're as i said the way I've dramatised it,

whether it's the way it was in real life, I don't know. I suspect it might be, that's why I've chosen to dramatise it in that way, was that they started writing thinking, we've got to make money. We can't rely on our brother. The father was elderly and increasingly ill, although he did outlive all of them in the end.

And Bramwell didn't know initially that it was them that was writing these books? He didn't ever know. He didn't ever know? Oh, right. They deliberately kept it from him because they were worried that he would get upset. Yeah. It's what he'd always wanted to do and failed to do.

It's all in the can now. Yeah. And was it an enjoyable, smooth shoot? Not entirely. Tougher than most, or is it always difficult? There were some really great aspects to it. I loved rehearsing with the Bronte kids. They were all fantastic.

Sorry, I said kids. They're in their 20s. It was a really enjoyable process in terms of um exploring the scripts and exploring their characters and developing the characters with the actors i really enjoyed that but it was a tough shoot in other ways i've never i've never well i haven't directed a lot before you know it's still only the third thing i've directed what other things have you directed then well happy valley i I directed one episode of Happy Valley for season one and then four episodes for season two. And then this is the third thing I've directed for telly.

And it's the first period thing I've directed, and I think that was one of the things that made it harder. There's just so many technical things involved. For instance, we built the set in a studio in Manchester and so through the window it was green screen and that all has to be CGI'd on afterwards so that just takes time it just takes time to set up the studio with green screen

there's a lot of things that as a director are out of your hands you're relying on other people to bring their expertise and knowledge to it and if they say this is going to take two hours to set up you kind of have to accept that you know there's nothing you can do to make it go any faster so it can be I found it quite frustrating the amount of time that you don't spend actually filming yeah the amount of time you just spend sitting around waiting for other people to do their jobs. Right.

And especially as you're a writer, you call the shots in your domain and you set your own timetable most of the time, I would think. That must be extremely frustrating, yeah, to suddenly have to fit in with everybody else's routine. Well, it's frustrating, but it's also... I mean, I love directing. I love the process directing i love the

uh process you love the power um i love being able to control how my own work is filmed yeah i bet um i don't think i particularly love power per se i mean i was joking um has it been frustrating for you in the past to see directors interpreting your stuff? I've worked with a lot of good directors and they get a lot right, but they always get things wrong too. And that's difficult, that's frustrating. When you've put your heart and soul into a scene, you've cried writing it,

you've spent hours banging your head against the wall to get it right. And then somebody comes along and just doesn't get it. And it takes one scene for that to happen. Do you battle in those situations? I just get very frustrated and cross. And when you say you cry writing, I've heard you talking about writing before, and you literally do have moments where you're in tears. Well, I think it's very cathartic. I mean, drama is cathartic.

Drama, you know, is there to bring out emotions. Sure, I mean, that's what you get as a viewer. And you certainly go through things when you write it. But that's... I suppose that's why I do it. It's the fun of it, really. Bizarrely. I know it sounds a bit bonkers, but... No, not at all.

Now, there's so much I want to ask you and obviously I'm aware that we've got a limited amount of time but I'm going to usually I just sort of

talk bollocks you know and talk about whatever but I really you know it was quite a watershed for me when I

when I first saw Happy Valley because I wasn't really, I was aware of your stuff before at Home with the Braithwaite's and Scott and Bailey, et cetera, but hadn't really ever got to grips with it. I'd seen it very fleetingly. But who was it? It was Sarah Millican, the comedian, who was tweeting about Happy Valley.

And I thought, oh, yeah, I'll give that a go. And I was, I've never seen anything like that on TV before. I really was enthralled. I was gripped and I was like, holy shit, you know, this is very different and compelling in a totally different way to anything I'd watched. I was one of those people that watched a lot of kind of Scandi cop shows and things like that and enjoyed them very much

and The Killing and Spiral and... Spiral was great. Yeah, and then True Detective and things like that. But it seemed in a lot of those shows that they repeated a lot of the same beats and a lot of the same things were happening, and all those three shows, I think, at various points, started with a young dead woman in a field or somewhere outside. And it seemed with Happy Valley

that you were deliberately overturning a lot of those conventions. Is that the case or have I read too much into it? Well, no, I think the difference, certainly between the shows you've talked about and Happy Valley, is that we only do six episodes, whereas they will do 12. And I can't imagine what it's like to have to film that many episodes with one story, because I think you will probably end up repeating beats and dragging things out a little bit.

But in terms of dead females and things like that, yes, it's kind of a moot point. We got a lot of criticism in Happy Valley for showing violence against women, but I do think it was different what we did. I think that the show really was about women who were empowered. And we didn't just show women as victims, we showed women who... We show what happens after something like that's happened

and the response to that. Certainly in series two, I was really pleased that Anne Gallagher came back as a cop. You know, she had this traumatic experience in season one, but she was consciously saying, I am not going to be defeated by this. I am going to make this count. She's the character in the first series, for listeners who haven't seen it yet,

I don't want to spoil it, but she is kidnapped. And you think at the beginning, OK, here's a gritty, dark, whatever you want to call it, cop drama. She's not going to make it. She's something bad, it's going to happen to her, and maybe they'll string us along for maybe until the last episode. But the way things go in modern drama,

it seems like a lot of directors or a lot of writers feel it's almost a cop-out to have an ending that isn't utterly bleak and it's usually something utterly bleak happening to the woman. Yeah, I mean, I wanted Catherine to rescue her. And again, I remember people criticising. I said I thought it was uplifting when they escaped from the cellar together. And I was misquoted as saying I thought violence was uplifting. But I did think it was uplifting that Catherine goes into that cellar to rescue Anne.

And then Catherine gets beaten up. And then Anne, who's the victim, in inverted commas, well, she was was a victim but she refused to be a victim and she helped katherine get out and that's what i thought was hopefully uplifting that it was two women helping each other to escape it was amazing it was it was it was de-victimizing them that's not i think it's amazing that people would i mean i haven't read any of that criticism but But it seems... Did people make similar criticisms about shows like True Detective and things like that? I didn't read any.

But, I mean, it seems unbelievable that people would get the wrong end of the stick with Happy Valley so much. I suppose it's lazy journalism. Yeah, yeah. That scene in the cellar there, I've never seen anything so tense ever in my life it was unbelievable literally I was standing up

and shouting I kind of lost my mind it was a bit like the way some people watch football which I wouldn't normally do and I read somewhere that that scene was a lot longer when you shot it or a lot more violent even it was, yeah Charlotte Moore asked us to turn it down I read somewhere that that scene was a lot longer when you shot it, was it? Or a lot more violent even?

It was, yeah. Charlotte Moore asked us to turn it down. And I was really cross and I argued with her about it. But I had to eventually do as she was asking me to do. And I think in the end she was right, that it did have the desired effect without being any longer than it was. Yeah, I mean, it really works. I was interested to hear you talking about violence on screen at one point.

And I can't think of that many people in the entertainment industry who have acknowledged the way you have, I think, that sometimes you find it questionable to make entertainment out of things that are very dark and difficult. And you do think about that and struggle with that. It seems almost, I think, sometimes that if you even acknowledge that question exists, then it's just too difficult or complicated. And also, you know, the link between the violence on screen and the way people behave.

I think a lot of directors, because it's impossible to conclusively establish a link between those things, really. Most directors won't even talk about it. On a very simple level, if I see somebody having a drink on telly, it makes me think about, oh, shall I borrow a glass of wine? Or I know when I was younger, people I liked on telly, if they were having a fag, I thought it was cool to smoke. So I do know from my own personal experience

of being a gullible person that things on telly do affect you, whether you're aware of it or not, whether you're consciously aware of it or not. It does baffle me that we do make so much entertainment out of murder and violence, and it's all sanitised. It's all unreal, most of it. You don't see the consequences of real violence

very often at all. When I wrote Scott and Bailey, I worked very closely with Diane Taylor, who was a detective inspector with the Greater Manchester Police. And so I became very rapidly acquainted with what real murder is like, and she was very uncompromising in telling me a huge amount of stuff and I was shocked about the reality of it you know that most murders are committed by people who are either drunk or off their heads on drugs you know they're not these cleverly calculated plots by middle class people in posh little villages in the courts world. I don't know, I suppose it's Agatha Christie people have always been fascinated by, whodunits. Yeah. And then on the other end... But it's so... It's such a weird version of, you know,

a brutal act, murder, turned into something fluffy and chocolate boxy of a Sunday evening. Yeah. I really don't get that. Then there's that, and then how do you feel about the sort of big, schlocky Hollywood approach to movie violence and gun violence, et cetera? Hit it. Yeah. Because the thing, obviously, about, which you sort of said there, the thing about violence in real life, or even just bad vibes, is if you have a confrontation with someone in the street, if someone shakes their head at you can really shake you up you know just that just that level of confrontation yeah and then

in a film you know so you can take a punch or you can you know if someone punched you in the face yeah in real life you'd probably be traumatized for months or something it's shocking i once i've only ever once seen somebody punch someone in the face. Yeah. When I was at university. I don't know what they did. These two lads are, again, drunk, completely drunk. And this lad punched either one, and it was a proper smack. Right. And that was it, one hit, and you're on the floor,

and it hurts. Yeah. And the person who hit here, their hand hurts, and it's shocking. But we see so much of it. Certain people clearly do want to see that. And it is hugely populist. There are so many American movies I can't watch because of things.

It's not because I'm offended by it. It's because I absolutely don't believe it. Yeah. And it's not that you're queasy about it. No. Right. Well, I am a bit queasy sometimes. But I'm not queasy about things like that

because it's so sanitised. It's like in video games when people kill people, they're not allowed to show blood, but they can show them murdering them really violently. Mm. I don't know if it... Obviously, I'm not a teenage boy who thinks that's a good thing. I suppose I'm a storyteller.

I like to tell stories. I like to tell interesting stories about real people. I am talking to Sally Wainwright About some of the stuff that she does Check out my next line of brilliant inquiry All about how she writes her characters Nice. The thing that jumps out amongst the many things in your shows, of brilliant inquiry, all about how she writes her characters. Nice.

The thing that jumps out amongst the many things in your shows, I think, are obviously the characters. They're drawn so vividly, and so you feel as a viewer that you know them and you want to know more about them very quickly. And that's really satisfying to get hooked in. You know, there's a lot of good shows with good characters that people say, oh, you're going to need five episodes to get hooked in. You know, there's a lot of good shows with good characters that people say, oh, you're going to need five episodes to get in there. Again, as you say, the American model

tends to be the longer runs. And so in the UK, you've got to get in there within the first episode, don't you? You can't just say, oh, they'll be all right after the third episode. And I've heard you say that you're interested, especially with a show like Happy Valley, that you're interested, especially with a show like Happy Valley, that you're interested in the psychology of people rather than thinking about crime too

much. But how do you go about making the psychology of those characters come to life so quickly? Are there things that you're aware that you're doing when you're writing? The most important thing for me when I start writing a script with a new character is that I have to entertain people. I have to make them want to watch this show. I have to make them want to listen to what this person's saying. It's a hard thing to talk about because I don't really know what I do when I sit down and write.

For me, it often has to be funny, engaging. It's saying something new. I think if you... As you open a first episode of a first series, you have to show the audience something they've not quite seen before. It's often quite subtle things. Nothing's really that new, but it's just finding a new way to say something

or a new way to express something. And I suppose if you can do that, you will invent a character who's interesting because they're saying something in a way that's never quite been said before. When you're talking about that, I think of the opening scene of Last Tango in Halifax from 2012, I think. The first one. Anne Reid's character Celia is writing an email to an

old school friend that she's interested in going on a date with. And we see all the various drafts that she goes through as she struggles to come across the right way. And that's something that everybody can relate to. But it's such a great observation about a modern routine because it's something that's below the level of people's consciousness generally when they're composing an email i'd never seen anyone do that on tv before and it was brilliantly conveyed i think it was derrick actually i think he was writing to annie's character oh yes you're right yeah and um it was that debate about in his head about whether you put a kiss on the bottom of that and how a kiss will be interpreted. You know, some people you could put a kiss on and it really doesn't

matter because they know you don't fancy them. But if it's somebody who you're scared might think that you fancy them, you don't put a kiss on or you're going to have to question it. There's a lot of moments in the shows, I think, that remind me of the way that comedians look at the world. That eye for the minutiae of everyday life

and the way that people interact. And do you... I was interested just on a sort of practical level how you collect those, how you keep those in your mind. I mean, people use their phones a lot these days. What's your process? I should do that. I should do something like that. I don't consciously write things down.

Do you not? No. How do you remember it then? I don't know. I don't remember them. My memory's becoming increasingly crap the older I get. I think they just tend to pop... I think they're all in there somewhere and they tend to just pop up at the appropriate time when I need them. So you don't have a big long list of like cool, funny things that I can use in the show? I started writing down cool, funny things that younger people say because I'm worried that I do not get a lot

of youth culture or I don't, you know, I'm worried about writing things that are clearly uncool to anybody, you know, below the age of 30. You have children, right? I've got two boys. Yeah. How old are they? 19 and 70. OK, so they're still saying cool, stupid things. Yeah, they have their own vocabulary, but I've just been working...

When we were filming, my third AD was this 25-year-old girl who's very, very funny. One of these people who is just a stand-up comedian. They're not paid to be that, but they just walk around being very funny all the time. And she comes out with stuff that I've started writing down. And I can't think of anything off the top of my head that she's said, but there are certain people who I tap into,

who I know are going to come out with things that will end up in a script one day. And then there are people in your real life that you take inspiration from as well, like the Celia character in Last Tango in Halifax is based on your mum to a degree. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever had anxieties about...

Knicking people. Knicking people? Not really, because they tend to be amalgamations of... I've never actually nicked anyone lock, stock and barrel that I'm aware of. They tend to be bits nicked from here and there of different people I've come across over the years. And some people you use a lot. I've got a friend who I tend to use her...

I realise I don't use, that's terrible, but she makes me laugh and I take a lot of inspiration from her mad lifestyle and her mad life. She's a fantastic, brilliant person and she's just very... She's, again, a bit-up unofficial stand-up comedian everything she does is for me everything she says is for me and uh yeah she's helps me a lot I should rather than have used her a lot and so do you have like her voice in your head when you're at the at the word processor word process kind of it's um it's um it's the it's not her voice yeah i suppose it

is a voice it's not literally a voice it's it's kind of more how she would cope in a mad situation that only she could have got into in the first place it's that kind of thing yeah and are you a comedy fan yourself are you did you watch a lot of comedy when you were growing up? Yes. I was very influenced by Victoria Wood. I'd love to have been a stand-up comedian, but I just couldn't imagine being able to do that. I wish I had what it took to do that. I love making people laugh. I love entertaining people.

That's kind of what I've set out to do, primarily, is to entertain people. And I think humour is such a great communication tool. People engage when you make them laugh. If they know you're going to make them laugh, they will really listen. Jeremy Corbyn could do with being a bit funnier. Yeah, everyone could do with being a bit funnier.

But then if you tell people that you're funny, it has the opposite effect. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, yeah. If you advertise, like I always, when people ask me what I do, the last thing I want to say is, oh, I'm a comedian, because usually the next thing that they say is, tell us a joke. Make us laugh then, yeah.

Yeah, and then you're like, it's not going to go well. I'd like to write about a stand-up comedian. I've got a plan to write a story about a female stand-up comedian. I've never got around to doing it, but I would absolutely love to do that. I did some research once. Me and my husband, Austin, went to see some comedy clubs in London, you know, really small-scale comedy clubs. And we saw some really bad stand-up comedians

and it really made you appreciate how good the good ones are. Yeah. You know, clearly people have a real compulsion to want to do it. Mm-hm. And bad stand-up is excruciating. I don't know if you've seen it. I've done loads, yeah. No, I'm sure you haven't done it.

Oh, I certainly have. Yeah, no, it is excruciating. My wife, my wife, she doesn't like to come to any of my gigs because she feels it too keenly, the embarrassment, when it doesn't go well, not only for me but for other acts. The gap between their ambition to make someone laugh and the failure to do so, it seems so colossal in that field rather than... I think it's because when we talk to each other in real life,

if someone makes us laugh, it's great, it's funny, and it's slightly unexpected. Yeah. And when you have paid to go into a club and you expect someone to make you laugh, that's hard. Yeah. Although I don't know, because I think if you go into a club like that, it's because you want to go and have a laugh.

Yeah, you want them to do well. That's the thing. Yeah. As an audience member... It's not like you're going in hoping to see them die on their arse. No, I don't think so. I mean, I suppose some people must be, but generally I think audiences want them to do well.

And when a good comedian comes on and he's totally relaxed or she is totally relaxed and says something funny, the audience immediately breathes out and you do. You're no longer tense. And it's such a wonderful feeling. That's almost part of it. It's like, thank you for not making me want to die with embarrassment for you.

I'd love to see you apply your skills to the world of stand-up. I used to try and write material and I just couldn't write the right kind of material. Obviously I can, my thing is writing dialogue but to write, I don't know, 10 minutes of stand-up, I just couldn't do it. I really tried. I want to do this drama about stand-up and clearly it's got to be funny because the woman is meant to be like a megastar so it's got to be funny because the woman is meant to be like a megastar. So it's got to be properly, seriously funny. And I just really couldn't come up with... It was all Nick from Victoria Wood and Eddie Izzard.

It was all very derivative of them. But which is fine as a starting point to try and get yourself into the mood writing it. But it just wasn't any good enough. Would you ever sit down with someone like Eddie Izzard then and say, well, can you give me the form of some material and then I'll...? I'd love to sit down with Eddie Izzard and do that. But I suspect his personality as well.

You know, someone like Eddie Izzard or Victoria Wood, you just want them to be your best friend. You just want them to come and be in your life because they're so entertaining. And I don't know if it is the quality of the material and the personality that's delivering it. Yeah, they were very... You know, I'm sure somebody could deliver Eddie Izzard's material

and it just not be funny. Oh, God, yeah. Somebody who didn't know what they were doing. Eddie Murphy even had a gag about the way that people used to tell his jokes in one of his stand-up routines, and it was really funny. He did a joke about white people doing a terrible job of doing his routines, which me and all my mates used to do. And it was great.

It was a genius bit. So you must have been upset when Victoria Wood died died earlier this year we all were but um shocked yeah yeah really shocked do you get upset about things like that when celebrities die i was about her because i didn't know her personally i'd met her a couple of times i didn't know her and um it did it did weirdly feel like a personal loss. Just because she'd had such a big effect on me since, I think I first became aware of her when I was about 18. Wooden Walters. And she influenced me a lot.

I used to try and write like her. I used to try and write comedy like her. I used to try and write comedy like her. So, you know, it's been a constant source of inspiration for like 30 years. It was a bit presumptuous to say it, but it did feel like a personal loss. It was a real shock. I don't think it's presumptuous. I've been going through the same thing with Bowie.

Right, yeah. And, yeah, I found myself surprised by how upset I was and found myself suddenly I was one of those people that I thought were weird when Princess Diana died. You know? Overreactors. I was like, come on, get a grip. And then suddenly when Bowie went, I was like, oh, dear, I'm depressed. And I felt so mortal. I think we're'm depressed and I felt so uh so mortal I think

we're you and I around the same sort of age probably thinking about those kinds of things anyway and um so it really brings it into unpleasant relief um I mean this is a weird year though isn't it well I think we're all still in shock at the moment, aren't we? Yeah. That felt like a bereavement. This is the referendum we're talking about now, yeah. That felt like the same kind of shock as a bereavement to me. Yeah.

I mean, I still don't, in a bereavement, don't quite believe it's happened. Uh-huh. I mean, it's, what, five days ago. And it still feels pretty weird. Are you frightened about the future then? Are you someone who... I'm disappointed about the future.

I think we've just copped out and been very retrogressive. Mm-hm. And short-sighted. What's the saddest thing in your mind about that result? That there are a lot of people out there who voted for something that they were clearly being misled about what i what i am sad about is that i think a lot of people who voted to leave were actually upset about a lot of other things that it's kind of a protest i think this i don't know that it's true it's kind

of a process against the establishment and about the fact that they do feel very disenfranchised a lot of the time. But I think it was the wrong battle. But it's the only battle they had. It's the only chance a lot of people have to show that they're not happy with how things are. But I think it's... I think it was the wrong thing to choose to do. But I do understand why lots of people have voted like that.

But I think they've done it through being misguided and misled. Anyway, let's not dwell on that. Yes, we talked about Brexit And wow, we said some important stuff Then I asked more about writing, but the question itself was not very well formed. I'm interested to know about the specifics, like, of... Cos I once met a comedian called David Cross, American guy,

and we were talking about possibly writing something together, or rather he was interviewing me with a view to maybe writing together and at the end of our meeting he said have you got any questions and I said yeah when you're writing with someone else who sits at the computer and does the actual writing and who sort of paces around the room with their hands behind their back and drinks coffee and he looked at me and he just said, is that your question? I thought, yeah, that's the stupidest question I've ever heard. I thought that was reasonable.

I mean, you don't write with someone else in the room, though, do you? I never have written with anyone else, and that is what would worry me. Yeah. Who's actually in charge. The practical accountant, exactly. Because, you know, it's tempting sometimes to think, you know know get together with so-and-so friends who were actors but i think the problem is i'd be a bit of a control freak and i'd end up pissing them off and just wanted to do it all myself anyway

yeah i've never tried doing that i don't know it works so you've got a comedy partner? Well, not currently, but I used to. And we found ways of not writing together. We'd just divvy up what needed to be done and go off and do it separately. And I've never really been able to crack that nut of writing with someone else. I find it really difficult. And it is primarily because of the awkwardness. and it is primarily because of the awkwardness that just the i'm just too much of a weed to deal with the whole business of of my feelings being hurt when an idea is no good and being embarrassed about saying the idea out loud and and then not wanting to hurt someone else's feelings

if i think what they are suggesting is no and all this sort of crap which is totally unhelpful and doesn't get anything done, you know. And you get the impression that good writing teams, you know, they're beyond all of that, obviously. I'd still like to know how good writing teams actually physically work, whether they do actually sit in the same room for hours on end together or if they do actually just go away and one person writes a draft and then the other person looks at it separately

and adds bits or tweaks bits and then it's battered back and forth like that. I can't imagine sitting in a room with two people writing. I mean, it's just not a spectator sport, is it, writing? No. But then, I mean, I know Graham Linehan and I know when he and Arthur Matthews wrote Father Ted together and stuff, they would sometimes be writing in offices in London where my wife worked and she would talk about them roaring with laughter.

Oh, that's good. You know, having a great time. Yeah. So like they were improvising things rather than actually writing them down. Yeah. Well, Graham always talks about the fact that they reached a certain point where writing the lines for the characters felt like you were just pressing play on a tape recorder

and you could hear what they were saying, and they were just writing it down. So they were just sort of saying it was coming out of them very easily. Do you get to that stage? Presumably you must do with your characters. Yeah, it's nice when you do get to that stage when something just kind of flows, and you feel like you're not having to make an effort,

it's just flowing out of you. Yeah. It's not always like that. It takes a lot of planning and plotting to get into that. What was the first thing that arrived with Happy Valley? Was it the idea for the whole show or was it one of the characters? The BBC asked me, it was after Scott and Bailey and the BBC asked me if I'd...

Ben, it was then, Ben Stevenson asked me if I'd think about writing a cop show for them. So I thought, having written Scott and Bailey and the BBC asked me if I'd, Ben, it was then, Ben Stevenson asked me if I'd think about writing a cop show for them. So I thought, well, having written Scott and Bailey, it seemed obvious to try and write about a uniformed cop rather than detectives. And I knew I wanted to write something else for Sarah after Last Tango. And it was kind of that, really. So I got in touch with some detective friends that I'd met through a journalist friend, and I said, do you know any uniformed cops, women, who might help me?

Because I didn't know anything about being on the beat. I'd never met a uniformed officer. And they put me in touch with Lisa Farrans, who became my... She turned out to be someone I'd been at school with, and I didn't know it was her because she'd got a new surname. So Lisa informed that character a huge amount. We just spent a lot of time together. And again, I kind of nicked a lot of stuff about her

and not too personal, but more about her attitudes and her way of dealing with things. And was she aware of that? Did you say to her at any point? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then you fit that together with uh sarah lancashire and yeah great what about characters that you have to create from nothing

um the the supporting characters and things like that how do you begin to think of those because they're all so well drawn as well it's really yeah i mean it's really interesting to i often don't know i often can't answer that question question. I often don't know where they come from. What I do do when I sit down to start writing a drama is I will sit down and just write as much as I can, any thoughts that come into my head. Like, why is Catherine, who's a family... I invent a sister who becomes this recovering drug addict.

Claire. Yeah. So you try and just... I suppose it's like a mind map, but it's like writing down every possible thing about that character and where they live and why they live in that house and why they live in that street and why they drive that car rather than a bigger car or a smaller car.

And it's just trying to make everything make sense and feel real to me. But a lot of it comes fully formed, and I don't know where it comes from. It's just the way my imagination works, I suppose. And your instincts, you're happy to trust them and they do well for you most of the time. You don't find yourself having to go back and perhaps you look at the stuff you've written and you think, nah. The instinct helps you with is knowing when something isn't right.

Right. So you have to work harder at it. You know, if you don't quite believe something, it's the instinct that makes you go back at something and look at it again and try and work on it more rather than just accept things. I remember as a teenager trying to write things and for me it always had to it always had to be real i always had to absolutely believe in it

or i couldn't write things it's like having a character if you haven't got a name for them i couldn't write dialogue for somebody who hasn't got a name and finding names is the hardest thing so it's how do you do that? You just have to keep thinking until you find one or you find lists of names and go through them. And you'll come to one eventually and you go, oh, that's right, that works. And so with... I'm thinking about Catherine's sister Claire,

the character Claire in Happy Valley, played by Siobhan Finneran. I mean, she could so easily be kind of a rather irritating caricature of that family member or relative who's a bit of a flake, has a tendency to come off the rails. Instead, she's very likeable and all her flaws make total sense and you buy into them. You're not irritated by them, you know what I mean? You feel bad for her.

But again, I think that's comedy. Yeah. I think it's comedy. Yeah. I think it's, I write the character funny and Siobhan has got real incredible funny bones. She's a real, she's one of the funniest women on the planet and she can really convey that humour. So I think that's, you know, however flawed or bad your character is, you can always redeem them if you let them make people laugh

or if they're capable of making people laugh. That's why I love working with Sarah. She can do the darkest, darkest stuff, and then she can be hilariously funny at the same time. And that's just... Again, I think in real life we respond to people who are funny, people who can make us laugh. And then with sort of grimmer characters,

obviously Tommy Lee Royce being the obvious one, played by James Norton. He's great because he's not a caricature. He's someone who seems to really believe that he is in the right and that he's had a hard time and that people have screwed him over and misunderstood him. It's totally believable. I mean, he's such a good actor, James. Yeah. He thinks things through.

I think, you know, great quality when you write characters is to not demonise anyone. It's to present characters as they would present themselves and then I think you see lots of aspects to them. So a character like Tommy who is clearly difficult,

he's done a lot of... He's had a difficult life and he's a psychopath and he hasn't got a lot of redeeming qualities. But if you could present the world occasionally from his point of view or present his side of things occasionally... And again, a character like Catherine, who we love and who is great, to show that she has bad aspects to her personality as well. I think that's the way to create rounded characters

that will be interesting to watch. I mean, that's what's interesting about watching an actor like James, who will represent his character fairly. I mean, I assume nobody consciously thinks of themselves as evil, even people who have done evil things don't think that they are and so for an actor to think like that and to present them fairly i think will allow you to present a rounded multi-layered character yeah i like the idea that people are in entertainment somehow encouraged to think of the good and the bad that's in everybody

you know what i mean rather than people just being total caricatures i mean of course it's fun there there's a time and a place for like totally cartoonish characterization but it's so much more satisfying to think about people in those ways in a more nuanced way i mean almost to return to um Brexit, if anything good was to come of it, I think it would be great if people had a little bit more of a sense of why people made the decisions they did without condemning them. You know what I mean? Because I thought it was a shame the day after the referendum that everybody who felt so upset and so hurt, who wanted us to remain, immediately just started writing everybody off as a moron who'd voted the other way. You know what I mean? Like, you dicks!

Suddenly everyone was like a political expert with the foresight to know exactly what was going to happen in 20 years, 30 years or whatever, and everyone else was an imbecile. I just don't see that that atmosphere is helpful as far as moving forward. No, clearly it isn't. I mean, the biggest question really is why we had the referendum in the first place. You know, if it was such a big deal and was about so many issues that us ordinary people don't understand, like economics, I don't know the first damn thing about economics. I shouldn't have really voted on this.

It shouldn't have been such a black-and-white agenda. The problem with politics is that we're not encouraged to think about it because it suits the establishment for us not to think about it. Then they can just quietly get on with it. Not quietly, but they can get on with it at Westminster and run ring-drowners because we feel like we don't really understand the subtleties and nuances of what goes on there. And that's because we're not encouraged to.

Politics should be taught in schools. It should be taught in schools from us being tiny. It should be taught in schools from when we begin to learn how to read and write. And then people will be properly enfranchised. We have the vote, but we're not enfranchised. I don't think we're enfranchised over Europe. We have the vote, but the're not enfranchised. I don't think we're enfranchised over Europe. We have the vote, but the vast majority of people did not. And I'm not saying

this is other people, this is me. I did not understand enough about the nuances and subtleties of what being in Europe involves. I only started to learn anything about politics when I did history A-level, 19th century British politics. And I started to learn anything about politics when I did history A-level, 19th century British politics. Then I started to learn about how government works, how parliament works, how bills are passed. Most people don't have to engage with things like that, but it should be taught in schools from an early age. We should understand how our system works at national level

and at local level. I don't know anything about local government. I don't know how local government works. And I'm 53. Isn't that ridiculous? Well, it's not ridiculous because you're busy. But that's the thing. Everybody's busy.

A lot of people, it's one of those things that you don't have to find out about until it really affects you. And it shouldn't be like that. Politics is such an important subject and we should be, you know, it's one of those subjects that you learn, you do at A-level if you're lucky enough for your school to do it. Because a lot of schools don't do politics at A-level. Yeah. No, it is. You're right. It's crazy. It's like...

You know, religious study is compulsory. Yeah. Why isn't politics compulsory? Right. Yeah, there's sex ed and there's computer literacy and all those things which everyone knows you're going to need if you want to get by in the modern world. And as you say, why not an understanding of... How your country works.

How you're governed, what rights you have and what rights you don't have, what you can change, what you can't change, what's best left to politicians and what actually would be better if more people had a say in, all that kind of stuff. Yes, Buckles, interesting points, but now it's time to wrap up the chat. Is there going to be a third series of Happy Valley?

Hopefully. It's not going to be any time soon. Right. Because I've got a few other jobs on, but I fully intend to do a third series. Are you staying in the world of TV or are you going to do features as well? I keep wondering about the idea of trying to do a feature, but I think it's a very different world. It's a very different process.

And I love telly. I love writing television. I love the fact that we get things done very quickly. The turnover, it's rewarding, whereas in film things seem like a huge amount of time and there seems to be a lot more people involved. And there seems to be a lot more power involved as well. We were talking about power earlier. And so I worry that you can't see through your own vision as much.

You've got, you know, like 12 execs telling you different things. Right. So I think I'd find that quite... Because I'm in a position now with telly where I can kind of do what I want a lot of the time, which is nice. Yeah, it'll drive you mad. Good. This is an advert for Squarespace.

Every time I visit your website, I see success. This is an advert for Squarespace. I love browsing your videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. There we go.

Sally Wainwright. I'm very grateful to her for taking the time to talk to me. And I can't wait to see To Walk Invisible, which I think goes out towards the end of this year, 2016. And Happy Valley Season 3, that would be good, wouldn't it? But she said, don't hold your breath. Anyway, I'm up for pretty much anything Sally Wainwright feels like creating. I think she's really kind of a genius. So thanks to her. Anyway, at the beginning of the podcast,

I was talking about the fact that I'd been at Latitude last weekend. And I've been to the Latitude Festival in Suffolk many times doing my own stuff and doing bug shows. And I was there doing the David Bowie special on the Friday this year. It was a shortened version of the show because I think you can't really expect people in the festival context to be stuffed into a tent for that much longer than an hour. And the regular version of the Bowie special is quite a bit longer than that. Speaking of which, I am doing that show next week in Greenwich at the Greenwich Comedy Festival on the 26th. Although, looking at it, I think that that may be sold out. If you are in Ireland, I'm doing the Bowie special in the Ivy Gardens as part of the Vodafone Comedy Festival on Thursday the 28th in the evening so maybe see you then if you're a Dubliner can't wait to get back there I was at

the comedy festival there last year and I think it was the best gig I've ever had from the point of view of audience reaction and just the general atmosphere and hanging out afterwards and it was just a magical evening so I'm looking forward to going back there latitude though yeah it was fun and the Bowie special was good it went well i think and then later that night me and my son were wandering around bumping into various people uh joe lysett he was there i hope joe lysett might come on this podcast at some point he's a very nice guy and a funny person and um tash dimetriou and Jamie Demetriou and Dustin Demery Burns and all those kinds of comedy people,

they were hanging around. It was good to see them. And we went to see Grimes playing in the Six Music tent on that Friday night. And that was, I think, probably the highlight of my whole festival. She is magnificent. Not everybody's cup of tea musically, but very much the kind of thing that I like. It was a proper show. She had music and there was music. She did music there. And there was dancing and a proper lighting show. I was stood behind the lighting guy and it was like watching a super brilliant DJ.

playing this lighting board like an instrument. It was wonderful to watch. And she is a force of nature herself, Grimes, quite an unusual figure in lots of ways. I thought she was excellent. Other musical highlights that weekend, John Grant, I'd never seen him live before. He can really sing.

And he created a good atmosphere in the big obelisk arena, the main arena there. I mean, we saw a little bit of a lot of people, slaves, churches, the National. Oh, Kurt Weill we saw. That was really good. Old-fashioned kind of analogue rock. More or less the antithesis of Gr grimes's set but no less enjoyable um anyway so it was it was very good fun from a hanging out point of view and then the next night the saturday night i did another thing in the film tent which was a conversation with louis through

um and that was because one of the festival organisers had listened to the podcast that we did together and enjoyed it and thought that it might be quite good to do something similar in a live setting. So that was the idea. And we were thinking that it would just be a very relaxed conversation. Well, you know, a little bit like the podcast, not too much preparation, just a rambly chat, bit of kind of interview stuff, but mainly just talking about whatever. And they talked about putting us on in the comedy tent, but that's very big.

I mean, you can get 5,000 people, I think, in the comedy tent. And that seemed like a lot of pressure for something that we hadn't done before. We thought it would be better to to stay in the film tent but actually on the day it was uh quite oversubscribed there was a lot of people i'm glad to say who wanted to come along and see it but unfortunately they weren't all able to get in and the ones who did were kind of squashed in there and it was very hot. I think a couple of people passed out and had to be helped out. It was no good. And that always makes me feel really bad. I don't like the idea that the audience is uncomfortable and obviously it makes it much less relaxing when

you're on stage. But we did our best and we had a good time and i think people enjoyed it but i did regret i did regret the fact that more people weren't able to come along and enjoy the thing um you know comfortably hopefully we'll get the chance to do something similar again under more relaxed circumstances but thanks so much if you did come along or tried to come along and apologies if you didn't get in and apologies if you did get in. Apologies all around. Oh, there's a tractor coming. Rosie, Rosie, don't get killed by the tractor. Come on, dog, dog. Here we go. let's run away from the tractor seems like a good idea they're harvesting all the fields at the moment there he goes actually it's not a tractor it's a weird sort of spraying

machine it stinks around this part of the world at the moment. Oh, my goodness. It reeks. There's some weird thing that they put on the fields, and I don't know what it is. It looks organic, but they pile it up in great big brown mounds. I mean, I guess it just looks like sort of compost. But it smells unholy. I've described it before as being like a turkey's gooch, is what it smells like.

Like a turkey that's just been jogging. It's really bad. And yesterday it was overwhelming and the heat was intense as well. So the smell felt solid almost. And the flies were buzzing around. It was just horrific. Anyway, that's country life for you. Oh yeah, one more thing I wanted to say before saying goodbye this week. I wanted to give a plug to a friend of mine, Tony Law, the comedian, who I hope is going to be a guest on this podcast at some stage. But he is just about to go up to Edinburgh to do his show up there. And I really encourage you to check it out.

I asked him to tell me about the details and this was the text he sent. He said it's called Tony Law, a law undo his elf. What welcome. That's the name of the show. Tony Law, a law undo his elf. What welcome. It's at the Assembly Rainy Hall at 8 p.m. from the 4th of August to the 28th.

And Tony says it's a powerful work of art about redemption. Rebirth through the medium of arsefuckery. Features dance and mime. The best show for comedy ever produced. It will break stand-uppity. Wreck it, he says. I mean, Tony is a big, funny Canadian man and I like him very much

and he's recently made a lot of changes in his life which I guess maybe he will refer obliquely to in his show don't expect it to be a kind of straightforward confessional though because Tony's eye is always first and foremost on being silly. So well worth seeking that out if you're in Edinburgh. Anyway, just giving Tony a shout-out there, because he's a pal. And it's my podcast, so there's nothing you can do about it. You know, it's unfair, isn't it? But that's the way it goes. What do you think, Rosie? I think, you know, he's good, yeah, he's great,

but there's lots of other deserving comedians going up there in need of uh publicity why don't you do them a shout out well it's just not practical it would it would just i'd have to do like a whole podcast with just shout outs do why don't you that then? Probably be more interesting than a normal one of your podcasts. Hey, come on. That's a bit aggressive. What are you talking about? Just what you said there. Well, you said it. That's true. I did. This is your ripping off Nina Conti now. That's true, I am. But anyway, that's it for this week.

Thank you so much for listening. Oh yes, well, I remember a few people asked if I was going to put out the conversation that I had with Louis at Latitude as a podcast. And the short answer is no. Because I think it would be... I don't think it would make for a brilliant podcast. I did record it. because I think it would be, I don't think it would make for a brilliant podcast.

I did record it, but it was very much a live thing. You know, there were clips and it was quite visual. And we were responding to what was happening in the tent. And I'm just not so sure it's going to make for riveting listening. I did actually record a conversation a few weeks back with Louis, and we covered many of the same subjects that we ended up speaking about on stage at Latitude. So that'll come out sometime in the next few weeks by way of compensation slash consolation slash from Guns N' Roses. Thanks very much indeed to you for downloading this podcast. I hope you enjoyed it.

And thanks very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his excellent and continued production support. Till next time we're together, which I hope will not be too long in the future, do take extremely good care. Use protective gloves. I love you. Thank you.