Sally Wainwright

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the writer Sally Wainwright. TV is her chosen medium. And if, like millions of others, you've been hooked on Last Tango in Halifax, Happy Valley, or Scott and Bailey, you'll know that her ear for dialogue and talent for storytelling place her among the cream of small-screen dramatists. She majors in whip-smart phrasing and plotlines that twist the innards with their tension, but never strain plausibility. Her passion for everyday drama was honed at her mother's knee. In the 60s and 70s, as Mrs. Wainwright watched Corrie, Little Sally tuned in too, developing an affinity with the power of the portrayal of language as it is spoken and life as it is lived. She would later go on to write for the show. She says, When I was seven, I started writing down things that people said.

Presenter1:22

It was something I just had to do. I think I was born with it. It's like being able to draw or paint. Um some artists though, Sally Wainwright, give us a sort of surreal version or a sexier version or a stylized version of life. You seem very much to be in the figurative tradition, if I can say that, of writing. You you want reality on television.

Sally Wainwright1:41

I I really do. It's something that has always controlled my imagination, however

Sally Wainwright1:47

Imagine it if I am, it has to be based in something very, very, very real.

Presenter1:51

This idea of of having to do it in the same way that someone might have to play the piano or paint um that sounds like it comes easily to you, as though even if nobody was buying it, you'd be writing it.

Sally Wainwright2:02

You know

Sally Wainwright2:04

I think it's a compulsion writing. I think people are born writers, whether they're going to make a living out of it or not. I think people who are compelled to write will write.

Sally Wainwright2:11

Yeah.

Presenter2:11

The best thing I suppose that a writer can hope for is that they have a voice, that they are somebody who is distinguishable by the style of their writing.

Sally Wainwright2:20

Is that important to you? It's very important. I very consciously developed a style influenced by, you know, very specific writers. Barry Keefe was a huge influence on me when I was in my late teens. I w I went to see one of his plays when I was sixteen, Bastard Angel.

Sally Wainwright2:35

And it absolutely blew me away. And he writes in very short sentences.

Sally Wainwright2:40

The users full stops, where most people would use commas. And I I do that. I've done that ever since then. Ever since then, I write r these really ridiculously little sh one-word sentences sometimes. And I think it's really important because it's

Sally Wainwright2:51

It's a different kind of punctuation and I think it informs the actors what you want.

Presenter2:55

Strong and entirely believable characters. How do they take shape in your head? Is it first of all them speaking? Is that where you are, first of all?

Sally Wainwright3:04

and to come fully formed.

Sally Wainwright3:06

S some of the less uh huge characters, the the s slightly more peripheral characters, they're the harder ones to construct in a web because you feel you are constructing them. But the the big players they they do tend to just come straight into my head.

Presenter3:19

So interesting. Tell me you need to explain more about that fully formed. Then do you mean it's almost like meeting someone?

Sally Wainwright3:26

Not quite. I don't know. It's not it's not like meeting someone, although it's it's odd. I mean, I do I do feel like I spend most of my time with people who don't exist and they're very real to me.

Sally Wainwright3:35

And they're often more real than

Sally Wainwright3:37

Real people, which probably means I'm bonkers, but there we go. Um

Sally Wainwright3:42

And is it as soon as I sit down to write their dialogue, it either comes or it doesn't.

Presenter3:42

And so

Sally Wainwright3:46

And once you are writing for someone and it's slowing, you know you've got that character.

Presenter3:50

Let's begin with your uh first disc of the day then. Tell me a little bit about this. Why have you chosen it and what is it?

Presenter3:57

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright3:57

Victoria Wood influenced me hugely when I was in my late teens. I think she's an extraordinarily talented woman. I wanted to be Victoria Wood when I was about seventeen. Well, I still do really. I could have chosen any number of Victoria Wood songs. I think it's that fantastic combination of the music, the lyrics. She's brilliant, but I've chosen this one.

Sally Wainwright4:19

Kind of'cause it takes me back to that period of my life when I first became aware of her.

Speaker 24:23

I wanna be 14 again When sex was just called number 10 And I was up to seven and a half

Speaker 24:34

Off when boys were for love and girls were for fun You burst out laughing if you saw a numb Sophistication was a sports car and a chiffon scarf

Speaker 24:47

I wanna be fourteen again Tattoo myself with a fountain pen Pretend to like the taste of romance

Presenter4:56

Victoria Wood and fourteen again. Sally Wainwright, you won your first BAFTA in twenty thirteen, which surprised me when I looked at the list of all the things you'd done before it. Um that was for Last Tango in Halifax. Did it feel like it had been a long time coming?

Sally Wainwright5:09

Uh yeah, it did actually.

Sally Wainwright5:11

Um I'd never even been nominated for a Bachelor for Writing before. I've won other awards for writing, but um

Sally Wainwright5:17

I don't know. I think a lot of people often feel overlooked. But yeah.

Presenter5:19

Um it it was very nice to win. Uh whenever people write about you as they increasingly do, they say, you know, Sally Rain Sally Wayne writes strong women. She's very good at strong women. I mean, I tend to think of it really as real women that you write about. How how do you think of it when you when you write these terrific female characters?

Sally Wainwright5:34

I think they're real. I mean, my favorite characters are

Sally Wainwright5:37

Flawed.

Sally Wainwright5:38

Ah, we're all flawed, we're all funny, we're all weird and we all take our tel ourselves terribly seriously and then we all laugh at ourselves as well and.

Sally Wainwright5:45

That's life, and I think the best characters are those. I uh get annoyed sometimes when people say, um, Sally Wainwright writes weak men and I think I write weak women as well. It's just that the women are at the forefront and the men aren't, you know, and I could write equally for men I suppose, but um

Sally Wainwright6:00

I s I I don't know, I just find women more fascinating, more interesting. Maybe it's'cause I'm a woman, I'm inside a woman's brain.

Sally Wainwright6:07

And I don't quite know what it's like to be in a man's brain, I can guess, I suppose.

Presenter6:10

Most recently, Happy Valley has been on our screens. It clocked in around about 8 million viewers and a huge amount of press coverage at the same time. Of course, it was Sarah Lancashire starring in that. I noticed you're credited not just as the creator and writer, but also in one episode as a director and also as an executive producer, too. I'm sensing from that that control is increasingly. Thank you.

Sally Wainwright6:31

Control single key.

Presenter6:34

I'm glad you said it. Yes, are you?

Sally Wainwright6:36

Um

Sally Wainwright6:38

I thi I I suspect a lot of people think I am.

Sally Wainwright6:41

Um I hope I'm not a total control freak. I do think you've got to accept that it's a team job.

Sally Wainwright6:47

I find it really.

Sally Wainwright6:48

Difficult to hand them over and watch other people.

Sally Wainwright6:52

Have the delight of bringing them to life. I want to do it, I want to do it all the time.

Presenter6:56

Is it because you think they they sometimes get it wrong or is it just because you you want to do it yourself?

Sally Wainwright7:01

They often get it wrong.

Presenter7:03

Do you tell them?

Sally Wainwright7:04

Oh, yes.

Sally Wainwright7:05

Um, but you know, you've got to accept that you can't do everything. I mean, I don't think I'm a control freak in that I don't want to act the parts.

Presenter7:11

No.

Sally Wainwright7:12

I don't want to design the set.

Sally Wainwright7:14

I just want to write and direct, so that's why in a sense I am a control freak, and in another sense I am, I hope, a good team player.

Presenter7:20

Yes, I mean I was being playful there saying control freak. But I'm I'm I want to hear a bit more about this you know, the dialogue between you and the director. If you look at the rushes at the do you get to see the rushes? Yeah. Right, that's quite a powerful situation. So when you look at the rushes at the end of the day, How does the conversation go when you feel like they've mucked it up?

Sally Wainwright7:37

Normally I would uh speak to Nicola Schindler, who's my co exec on all my shows.

Sally Wainwright7:42

And we discuss it, and if she agrees with me, it gets a reshot. When you have.

Presenter7:47

recently then got your hands on directing and been on set and imagined and brought to life this whole thing that has been imagined in your head. Has it been as satisfying as you would have hoped?

Sally Wainwright7:49

And then on

Presenter7:57

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright7:57

It was wonderful. It was extraordinary.

Sally Wainwright8:00

I I I can't begin to tell you how alive I felt when I was doing it and

Sally Wainwright8:04

It it was one of the most satisfying.

Sally Wainwright8:07

Exciting things I've ever done.

Presenter8:08

To music we go. Tell me about this second piece, Sally Rainwright. What are we going to hear now?

Sally Wainwright8:13

When I was twelve, Rock Follies of 77 was on telly. It was the second series. I'd never seen the first series. My dad wouldn't let me watch it. I think he thought it was a bit racy for an 11-year-old. And it probably was. But I insisted, I don't know why that I had to watch. I must have seen a trailer and it really spoke to me. And it absolutely blew me away. And it had, of all the television programmes I've ever seen, this is the one that really influenced me more than any other. And so this is The Band Who Wouldn't Die from Rock Follies of 77.

Speaker 18:22

Uh

Speaker 18:41

Exploded, we were shaking, we were safe, but we was almost killed.

Speaker 18:47

And a very face reporter. And if you tell me, hey, you need to be this will be great. I'm ready, right?

Speaker 18:55

You're exhausted, no, you're really not

Speaker 18:58

We've lost Spirit, we have lost it. He said you're colouring British drunk, it's limited. That's a story. No, my readers, it's a shock.

Presenter9:11

The band that wouldn't die from rock follies. Um, Sally Wainwright, you were born then uh near to Halifax, as it happens, Calderdale, in nineteen sixty three to Dorothy and Harry uh Wainwright. T tell me about your mum. Wha when you were a little girl, what what are your memories of her as a little girl?

Sally Wainwright9:25

She was great, she had a fantastic sense of humour, she always encouraged me with my writing.

Presenter9:29

Do you think she saw that in you from a little girl? Did she know you were a sort of wordy little girl with an ear tuned to the world, do you think?

Sally Wainwright9:37

I think I think there was one evening when we had a really good laugh together when I was about eleven and sh she o she says, looking back, she s she saw something in me that evening about the way I made her laugh.

Presenter9:47

Were you laughing as equals?'Cause that's a big moment, isn't it? Yes.

Sally Wainwright9:50

Yeah. Yeah, I think we you know, there's nobody who can make me laugh as much as my mum does even now, you know.

Presenter9:55

And what about your dad? What was his job?

Sally Wainwright9:57

Uh my dad was a senior lecturer at Huddersfield Polytechnic, he taught people to be teachers.

Sally Wainwright10:01

He was great, my dad. We used to do lots of things together. When I was little, he was very good at making things. I remember moms making a papier mashe room and helmet with him at home and things like that.'Cause we were both very interested in history.

Sally Wainwright10:13

I think, you know, looking back I had quite a complex relationship with my dad. Um, I loved him, but there w you know, th there was a lot of fighting as well. Not fight, you know, verbal, that kind of thing. But he encouraged me to go to university, which

Sally Wainwright10:26

I'm not sure I would have done without his influence on me, he'd he'd grown up in a

Sally Wainwright10:30

council house in Elland, and he was the first person in his family to go to university, and he really understood how important education was, and he really pushed me towards going to university. And I

Sally Wainwright10:40

Wasn't usually confident.

Sally Wainwright10:43

about doing that, but he but he pushed me to do that and I'm so glad he did.

Presenter10:46

And you weren't what socially confident, you mean?

Sally Wainwright10:48

I wasn't confident of my academic abilities.

Presenter10:51

Ah.

Sally Wainwright10:51

Which is nonsense. I'm I'm sure I'm as capable as anybody else who was at York University, but I th I think it's a cultural, social thing. You know, the first day there, I was surrounded by

Sally Wainwright11:00

people who'd been to public school southerners so much better spoken than me and it it really was a class confidence thing and it was the first time I was aware.

Sally Wainwright11:10

of well, I suppose as you know, the the the thing you got to universiforially, which is you know, a wider social mix. But but I I did I did feel out of my depth a lot of the time.

Presenter11:20

If you were sitting in a tutorial and there were seven other

Sally Wainwright11:21

And there were some

Sally Wainwright11:23

Oh, I wouldn't speak. I never spoke. It was I w I I had didn't have the confidence to speak. I did nineteenth century French and uh I had to read out a poem in French and when I looked up everybody was laughing at my French Yorkshire accent.

Sally Wainwright11:34

So that was that was exciting.

Presenter11:36

Obviously you you were entirely intelligent and intellectually capable. So there was never really a problem with learning. You didn't ha I'm thinking that you you didn't have dyslexia or you weren't sort of somebody who had difficulty getting the words down.

Sally Wainwright11:49

I never had trouble writing things down, but I d I do wonder if looking back I was dyslexic because I hated reading.

Sally Wainwright11:56

As a child, my parents and my sister were voracious readers, and I never was. I got bored on the first page of every book I ever tried to read. And I think.

Sally Wainwright12:05

looking back, that's why I started writing. I couldn't read other people's stories, so I started writing my own. But at at the time I wasn't dared to admit that, so I just persevered and persevered to the point where I actually ended up reading English literature at university.

Presenter12:16

And I said when I was introducing you this morning that you know you you were saying that from the age of seven you were starting to write things down, writing down things that people said. Was that because a phrase would tickle you or you'd think, Well, that that's interesting.

Sally Wainwright12:24

Fighting density.

Sally Wainwright12:30

What was the it was more, as I said, to do with reading novels, which I found really difficult. And I always thought the best bit of novels was what people said, and all the stuff in between wasn't really necessary.

Presenter12:39

Let's have some more music, Sally Wainwright. We're on your third of the morning. Tell me about this. Why have you chosen it?

Sally Wainwright12:45

Um this is um Scott Droplin's Maple Leaf Rag and it's performed by the Lebeck Sisters. It's a particular arrangement that I just love. It's so vibrant, it's so alive. It reminds me often of myself on my laptop writing a script because it's played so fast and with such passion and excitement.

Presenter14:02

That was Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag performed by the Lebeck Sisters and chosen by you, Sally Wainwright, you say in part because it reminds you of how you feel when you're sitting at the laptop and it's all flowing out of you. That's a wonderful image. And you used to drive the number thirty seven business. Amongst others, yeah. Yes. I mean, how old were you? How many years ago was this?

Sally Wainwright14:19

I th I think I started butt drying muscles when I was about twenty two and I did it for about eighteen months.

Presenter14:24

When I read this, it reminded me so much of the life of so many writers, because of course you've got to pay the gas bill. Were you writing at the same time as driving the bus?

Sally Wainwright14:32

No. After leaving university I'd taken a play that I wrote to the Edinburgh Festival that we did at university.

Sally Wainwright14:39

And I'd got an agent from that. I'd sent her a copy of the script and she took me on on spec. I did a lot of reading when I was a bus driver. I think I read the whole of Ibsen's plays and the whole of Chekhov's plays. Not whilst physically driving. No, good, and also she made that clear about the writing.

Presenter14:50

No, good. And also I should make that clear about the lighting. I wasn't thinking.

Sally Wainwright14:54

And I wo I was writing things but you know, not professionally and then Meg, who was the agent who'd take me on at that time, got me a trial script on the Archers and I was so determined to make it work and so naive and gauche about the real world that I just resigned from driving buses believing that the trial script would work. And fortunately it did, but you know, it may not have some, but you know, you take these risks when you're younger, don't you?

Presenter15:16

Did you know a lot about the show when you went?

Sally Wainwright15:17

I didn't. I didn't know anything about it. I'm ashamed to say it. It was odd because it was always on in our house when I was growing up. The archers was always on and I always heard it, but I never actually listened to it. So I didn't know who anybody was. So my mum gave me a crash course on who everybody was and she took me through all the current storylines and she helped me construct my story for my trial script.

Presenter15:36

She should have got a co-writing credit for all that, I think. What was your most famous storyline then in The Archers when you were up and running as a writer?

Sally Wainwright15:43

I wrote I don't think it was my idea, but I was the one who ended up writing this script. I think Clive Horrebin held up the village shop and he had Jack Woolley and Debbie Aldridge as hostages in the village shop, which sounds mad now.

Sally Wainwright15:58

I

Presenter15:58

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright15:58

So not the archers.

Presenter16:00

Not right now, but I think it went down quite well at the time.

Presenter16:03

Did it feel as you began to make I'm sure not a great living, but just enough to survive from something like the Archers? Did it feel like you were living the dream or did you think I never thought it'd be like this?

Sally Wainwright16:11

Yeah. You know, for me, 24 years old, earning the kind of money I was earning for writing the arch, I thought that was extraordinary.

Presenter16:19

Let's have another piece of music then, Sally Wainwright. We're on your fourth disc of the morning. Tell me about this. Why have you chosen this?

Sally Wainwright16:27

My husband Austin is a fantastic pianist.

Sally Wainwright16:30

and he suddenly started playing this piece on the piano one day and I was just blown away. And um I I liked it so much I started trying to learn to play it myself. I am a really bad pianist and I've been learning it for about twenty years now and I'm on about page three.

Sally Wainwright16:45

But Austin can play it beautifully.

Presenter17:43

That was Marta Argerich playing part of Bram's rhapsody in G major, opus seventy-nine. So by your early thirties then, Sally Wainwright, you were married, you were living in Shropshire, and then came the big chance to achieve this teenage ambition of writing for Coronation Street, as we know you've been working for a while on the Archers. It must be a big team of writers, of course. When you walk in there as the new girl on the first day with your pencils sharpened and a head full of ideas, what does that feel like?

Speaker 118:01

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright18:11

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright18:13

It was scary. I mean, it was fantastic. It was it was wonderful, but it was very, very scary. And at that time, it was very difficult to get on the team because nobody left.

Sally Wainwright18:23

And I think I was only like probably the third or fourth woman to write it.

Presenter18:27

You were young then, to be in your early thirties, walking into that. Did they welcome you? Were they helpful? Um

Sally Wainwright18:33

The producers did, but I think a lot of them

Sally Wainwright18:36

Men who'd been there a long time were fairly suspicious. They didn't really want anybody touching their shoe. They certainly didn't think someone like me could in any way.

Sally Wainwright18:45

possibly contribute to the fantastic you know, they were very protective of it and rightly so. They were, you know, great great scriptwriters, great storytellers. And it wa it was a wonderful experience. Again, I'd never dared sp I didn't speak in the f for the first three years of writing Coronation Street in a meeting. I was just so in awe of everyone. But I learned a hell of a lot. I learned a hell of a lot about storytelling.

Presenter19:03

Did you begin to get a grudging respect from your fellow more experienced writers then as they saw your storylines making it onto the screen and they saw that you could really turn a good script?

Sally Wainwright19:12

Most of them, I believe.

Presenter19:14

They never told you that.

Sally Wainwright19:15

Mm-hmm.

Sally Wainwright19:16

probably now have a sneaking regard, but a f a couple of them I think uh y you were never gonna

Sally Wainwright19:23

make them happy. But they it didn't matter. It didn't matter.

Presenter19:25

You were there from 1994 to 1999. Did you ever think about just sort of planting your feet under the table and staying put?

Sally Wainwright19:33

No, I didn't because I was lucky. I met Kay Maller quite early on in my career work. And Kay Meller, of course.

Presenter19:38

And Kate Miller, of course, is a another accomplished writer.

Sally Wainwright19:40

Yeah. At the time she was doing Band of Gold and that was a huge, enormous BAFTA winning hit. And she really took me under a wing and helped me a lot. She said when I w got on Coronation Street, she said, Don't stay for more than five years. She said, If you stay more than five years, you'll never leave and you've got to get away after five years, which is exactly what I did. And it wasn't entirely th through design. It I was lucky that the Braithwaites took off when it did.

Presenter20:01

Let's talk for a minute about the Braithwaite. That was at Home with the Braithwaites, which starred Amanda Redman at the heart of this family, and the secret she is keeping is that she's won the lottery. And of course, the great idea you had was to bring out this idea just as people for the first time ever in Britain were starting to become overnight millionaires, and some people were choosing to go public, and some people were keeping it private. She kept it private, even from her family, and then struggles with the reality of that. What it wonderfully tied in at the time was the general messiness of family life. That is something that you are spectacularly good at portraying. I mean, I'm guessing your life is no more messy than anybody else's, but it seems to be what really interests you as a writer.

Speaker 120:23

Yeah, and

Speaker 120:29

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright20:40

I thi I think it's I remember somebody writing about the breathworks saying that they put the fun in dysfunctional. And that for me k kinda some uh, you know, family life is dysfunctional. You know, when you chat to your friends you find out that that it's normal. We all struggle. We're all flawed. We all try to do our best and we don't always manage, you know.

Presenter20:57

When you wrote that first series, it very quickly became a great big hit on IT V. Did it did it surprise you, sort of take your breath away how quickly it caught on?

Sally Wainwright21:06

It never won any awards, but it was nominated for everything. We were even nominated for an Emmy, endless BAFTAs. So it was it was hugely nominated as a show. It never actually won anything, but it was very successful and it was very popular. And I thought that's what it was going to be like. So when I wrote my next show, uh, which was Sparkhouse, which is it for the BBC,

Sally Wainwright21:25

It didn't get huge audience, and it got some quite snippy reviews.

Sally Wainwright21:30

And I was really shocked because I had been spoiled by the success of the Brit.

Presenter21:33

D does that affect you if people don't like things? Does it matter a lot to you? Of course it does.

Presenter21:39

You you write because you want people to get it. Let's have your next piece of music, Sally Wainwright. What are we going to hear now? Your fifth.

Sally Wainwright21:45

uh suite by Malcolm Arnold. Why have you chosen this? I j I just remember the first time I ever saw a St Trinion's film and the best part was the titles and the music and the lyrics, which we haven't got here unfortunately, but again it was just that fantastic combination of perfect lyrics and perfect music and it's just hilarious.

Presenter21:49

Why have you chosen that?

Presenter22:38

That was the theme from the original 1954 film The Bells of St Trinians composed by Sir Malcolm Arnold, played there by the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Reuben Gamba. Sally Wainwright, I want to return to this idea of the messiness of family life, not just because you write it so well and so honestly, but because by 2001 your own family had grown to include two little boys, and you've also I think at that point had was your mother living in the same house as your mother had been widowed and by the time that

Sally Wainwright23:06

Um my dad died in 2001. Right.

Presenter23:08

Right.

Sally Wainwright23:09

And um my mum came to live with us uh about three years later.

Presenter23:14

If you're working in an office or for the NHS or you work in marketing, you leave the chaos for a few hours every day. You go somewhere else. If you're a writer,

Presenter23:24

I don't know wherever your laptop or your PC was, but I'm imagining imagining crammed in the corner of a room somewhere in this busy house.

Presenter23:32

How the hell do you find the time and the space and the mental clarity to write in the middle of a household where all these other things are going on?

Sally Wainwright23:39

Well, I've g I guess I was very lucky in that when we decided to have children we agreed that Austin would be the chief carer of the boys. And he's he's always been very good about my work, you know, he's respectful of it. And so we've we've always managed to find

Presenter23:45

Okay.

Sally Wainwright23:53

Time and space for me to have my own. Were the little boys respectful of it?

Sally Wainwright24:00

Um well your life just changes so much, doesn't it, when you've got little children? And y and you can't uh I thought I could write with George sitting in his little chair, his little car seat, and I thought he could sit there happily and I would write. And of course you can't do that. And it's not because they're demanding your attention, it's because you're compelled to look at them, you're compelled to spend time with them, you're compelled to do things with them. But everything's good material for writing about eventually.

Speaker 124:08

Yeah.

Presenter24:24

As I understand it, the plot for Last Tango and Halifax was.

Presenter24:28

Would it be fair to say entirely inspired by your mother's experience?

Sally Wainwright24:32

The idea was inspired entirely by her experience. Yeah, I mean, obviously I made a lot up as as the show as you have to, you know, you've got to fill six hours of

Presenter24:37

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright24:41

Storyline. And the problem was my mum met Alec Walker online and they f completely fell in love with each other and it was all beautiful and that doesn't make great drama, you know, you need a you need things to go wrong before the drama can kick in. But th what I wanted with the story was that they were this centre of sanity and happiness in the middle of an otherwise mad, mad world, you know.

Presenter25:00

It's been a terrific hit. I should just for the very few people in Britain who haven't seen it, sort of summarize the plot, which is um a woman in the the autumn of her years is widowed and then meets up with somebody that she's known many, many years before and love blossoms. And between the two of them it is essentially very straightforward. It's the response of the people beyond them that is complicated.

Speaker 125:16

Uh

Sally Wainwright25:17

That is

Presenter25:19

Did you ask your mother if it was all right, that you were using her life as the source material?

Sally Wainwright25:23

Oh, yes, she was thrilled, she was delighted.

Presenter25:25

Did you show her the scripts?

Sally Wainwright25:26

Oh yeah, she sees everything. She sees the rushes. We send her the rushes every day.

Sally Wainwright25:31

You know, there's things about it she doesn't like and she worries that people will take it all a bit too literally and think that it's it's verbating what her and Alec got up to, which of course it isn't. I I o I do often listen to my mum, she's kind of the person I write for still, you know.

Presenter25:44

Let's have your next disc then, Sally Wainwright. We are on your sixth. Tell me about this.

Sally Wainwright25:48

As I said before, my mum was a really fantastic pianist, and I always wanted to play the piano too, although I could never play as well as her. And we used to play this together. It's an arrangement of The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba for a piano duet, and it has a special significance for me as well, because when my mum and Alec got married, she wanted to walk down the aisle to The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, so Austin played it on the organ in the village church. And then when Alan and Celia got married in Last Tango, Kate played the piano and she played The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, so it's got a lot of really nice resonances for me.

Presenter27:27

handles The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, played there by Richard Baker and Raphael Tironi. So Sally Wainwright, death, divorce, violence, drug addiction, betrayal, you deal with them all in your writing, the complex, the most painful areas of the human experience.

Presenter27:43

Interesting that you do it entirely without any sort of mawkishness or sentimentality.

Presenter27:49

How do you get there? Where do you go inside yourself to mine that truth?

Sally Wainwright27:55

I think Human beings.

Sally Wainwright27:57

essentially are

Sally Wainwright27:59

Funny.

Sally Wainwright28:01

And I think, however dark things get, we tend to respond to things with humour and warmth. And I think.

Sally Wainwright28:10

If you can reflect that in drama, it's somewhere towards reflecting real life. I think y y you've got to trust your instinct. And I think I'm just lucky that my instinct are right.

Presenter28:22

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright28:22

Yeah.

Presenter28:22

Somebody wise said to me recently, you know, I mean, laughter is relatively easy. You know, we laugh a hundred times a day, but the moments in our life when we are

Presenter28:31

Moved to tears when we acknowledge and reflect on pain are few and far between.

Speaker 128:36

Mm.

Presenter28:37

How do you do that? Can you give us a window on what that experience is like?

Sally Wainwright28:40

Well, I suppose drama is about the dark side, drama is about when bad things happen to people.

Sally Wainwright28:45

So when you construct a story, you've got to challenge your protagonist. That's the whole point

Sally Wainwright28:51

point of drama, I suppose. And it's about thinking these things through to the nth degree. And I do, I mean, I j I spend a lot of my time fantasizing, I suppose, going through what my characters go through. I act out what my characters go through. And I find it very cathartic. I'm often, you know, sitting in my office crying my eyes out, writing things.

Sally Wainwright29:10

Um

Presenter29:11

When I hear you say that, it sounds to me like that would take quite a toll on a person.

Sally Wainwright29:17

It can do. I remember when I was um

Sally Wainwright29:20

Writing Scott and Bailey, and I was on the phone to my mum one day, and she said, Are you all right? and I said, Yeah, I'm fine. And she said, You you sound depressed and I said, I'm not depressed, I'm fine. And I realized actually I was depressed, and I think I'd spent so much time in

Sally Wainwright29:34

I spent a lot of time d doing really fantastic research with Diane Taylor, who was my advisor on Scott and Billy, she was a detective inspector with the Manchester Police.

Sally Wainwright29:43

And when you talk to someone like that y and you realize that

Sally Wainwright29:47

You know, murder isn't entertainment, it's horrible, and it's real, and it's disgusting.

Sally Wainwright29:51

And I d I don't know how detectives work, I couldn't do what they do. But I I'd got so immersed in it with the reality of it that

Sally Wainwright29:59

I'd got into quite a dark place without really realising it.

Sally Wainwright30:03

I and then I started writing, um, Last Tango and it was like

Sally Wainwright30:07

I was euphoric.

Sally Wainwright30:09

It was absolutely like a breath of fresh air. It was like walking into the sunshine. It was s a sudden elation that was weird and extraordinary.

Presenter30:16

Let's have your next piece of music, Sally Wainwright. Tell me about this. What are we going to hear?

Sally Wainwright30:20

This is Hark the Herald Angels Sing. It's an arrangement by John Rutter. I listen to Christmas carols all the time all the year round because I like them. And um it reminds me of my childhood actually. I used to be in the choir at Ritmonden Church, me and my sister did when we were really little and uh it was good fun. And one year we had to sing Christmas carols at Shibdin Hall in Halifax and it's just a really good memory.

Presenter31:42

That was some of Hark the Herald Angels Sing from The Colours of Christmas, sung by the Bach Choir, accompanied there by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Rutter. We've watched your work from Coronation Street at Home with the Braithwaite on to Scott and Bailey and the Happy Valley and so on and so on. When you look back, are you.

Presenter32:02

Conscious that he

Presenter32:04

You seem well, you seem to me at least to have matured as a writer. You are somebody who was working very well and capably with broad brush strokes, and it's become finer and finer and finer. You have honed your craft, I think.

Speaker 132:07

A riser

Sally Wainwright32:13

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright32:14

And you have

Sally Wainwright32:16

Mm. I think my work's got darker, um and I d I think that's kind of the slings and arrows of life and getting older and dealing with stuff.

Presenter32:27

You are, by admission, I see in a few press interviews, that you've done something of a workaholic.

Sally Wainwright32:33

I am, yeah, I c I I mean, I just I never stop thinking about what I'm writing. I I never go on holiday without taking my computer with me. I never get on the bus up to London without g bringing my computer with me.

Presenter32:42

But you take holidays though, presumably?

Sally Wainwright32:44

Oh, yeah, yeah. We we take holidays but a w well, my my hobby is writing, so why wouldn't I take my hobby with me? You know? It makes me very happy writing. I'm never happier than when

Sally Wainwright32:54

I'm writing and it's going really, really well.

Presenter32:57

I'm going to cast you away, Sally Winwright, to this island, where you will be all alone. You're probably very good at being alone.

Sally Wainwright33:03

I'd love it.

Presenter33:05

We do.

Sally Wainwright33:06

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright33:07

I'd missed the boys, and Austin, and the cats, and my mom.

Presenter33:11

Is he

Sally Wainwright33:11

Uh

Presenter33:11

Your favourite thing to be alone?

Sally Wainwright33:15

Yeah.

Sally Wainwright33:17

Yeah, it is

Presenter33:19

Tell me about your final piece of music. What are we gonna hear?

Sally Wainwright33:22

This is a showponge ballad and it's a piece that again that Austin plays on the piano. It's he usually plays it after we've had a bit of an argument. I don't know if he does it consciously or if he just does it without realizing, but whenever I hear it on the piano it makes me

Sally Wainwright33:36

Um sad that we've had an argument.

Presenter34:29

That was part of Chopin's Ballad No. One in G minor, opus twenty three, played there not Sally Wainwright by your husband, but by Christian Zimmermann. So I'm going to give you the books now. You get to take the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to this island. What else would you like to take?

Sally Wainwright34:42

Pretty much.

Sally Wainwright34:44

I'd like to take the twenty six volumes of Anne Lister's diary.

Sally Wainwright34:48

Am I allowed, Dutlin?

Presenter34:48

Am I like

Presenter34:49

I don't think you are. Twenty-six volumes seem stretching it a bit.

Sally Wainwright34:52

I'm stretching it a bit. Well, I'd have to take Jill Liddington's book about Analista called Female Fortune. Yes.

Presenter34:56

I will give you that. Much more suitable. And a luxury, too. What will that be?

Sally Wainwright35:00

A small art shop full of goodies.

Presenter35:02

Oh, yes, you can definitely have that. Are you a good artist? Are you accomplished?

Sally Wainwright35:04

Okay.

Sally Wainwright35:07

Yeah.

Presenter35:10

And who am I to judge or even know? And if you had to choose just one of the eight, which one would you pick?

Sally Wainwright35:17

I think it's gonna have to be the arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Right.

Presenter35:20

It's yours. Sally Wainwright, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter36:06

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.