Sophie Willan’s got decorators in. The 36-year-old writer, actor and comedian has recently bought her first house and apologises over Zoom as she calls out: “Hiya Pete, I’m in ’ere, do you need me? There’s more coffee if you need it. And milk. Help yourself to food.”
Willan grew up in and out of the care system. She has used these experiences as material for stand-up routines, theatre productions and, most recently, in her multi-Bafta Award-winning BBC comedy, Alma’s Not Normal.
“I don’t know about you,” she says, referencing the fact I was also in care, “but a lot of ‘care experienced people’ are people-pleasers. Because you’re literally taught if you don’t keep these people [foster carers] happy, you are not going to be loved.”
Many within the community, including myself, would agree. Statistics from the Department for Education’s latest stability index show that one in 10 children in the system move between three or more foster care placements in one year. That’s not much time to foster love.
Willan entered foster care at the age of six. She was later placed with her grandma from the age of eight to 15.
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“I got my first supported housing flat when I was 17. And before that, I was in supported lodgings,” she says. “At just 17, I lived on my own in a flat – I’m 37 this year, and I’ve just bought a house. I realise how lucky I am. TV’s such a unique position, isn’t it?”
Alma’s Not Normal stars (from left) Nicholas Asbury, Sophie Willan, Siobhan Finneran and Lorraine Ashbourne. Image: Matt Squire / BBC
Alma, played by Sophie Willan, is inspired by characters and experiences from her own life. The show’s second series continues to explore themes around mental health, homelessness, the impact of austerity and, of course, the care system.
The first season received rave reviews, particularly from within the care community. Notably, episode five followed Alma receiving her care records, which detail her childhood in the system – a situation that’s rarely depicted on screen.
Some care experienced people seek out their records to help them find out more about their childhoods. Childhood memories can become fuzzy or be fully forgotten, and these documents can help piece the past together.
However, as the records are written from the social work professionals’ perspectives – and opinions – the language can be impersonal. Records can also be redacted, leaving care experienced people to wade through pages of documentation that’s scattered with blacked-out text.
“Episode five was really important to me,” Willan says. “I’d previously done a stand-up comedy show called On Record about getting my records. Then I toured it and did workshops with young care experienced people in every town. That was really powerful. The [number of people] who approached me and talked about their experience – I knew it meant something. So to be able to do that on a bigger scale was really important.
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“When I got my records back there was this sense of, how the fuck am I supposed to get over this? How am I supposed to survive when all this stuff is basically saying there’s no chance? So I suppose it was me going ‘These things are hard – but we’re OK.’ I think the second season adds to that hope.”
As well as championing the struggles care experienced people face, season two also celebrates their strengths. Willan, through Alma, highlights the skills we often develop at an early age.
“We’re older than our years so we’ve got a special set of skills that are like superpowers, really. Care experienced people are the best people to have in a workplace. We’re brilliant! We know how to navigate difficult people. We know how to go, ‘Right, this is slightly uncomfortable, but I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that.’
“We’ve got survival skills that other people don’t have.”
We swap stories of foster care. How ‘nuts’ it can be to be a guest in someone’s home that isn’t yours. “A lot of foster carers are brilliant,” Willan says. “But a lot come with their own set of needs and projections on people. They’ve gone into fostering for different reasons. Sometimes it’s ugly and it’s for money. Sometimes they’re looking for a good story to tell. Or they want a co-dependent relationship you’re not able to offer. So you get a lot of shit projected onto you as a care experienced person. You have to learn to navigate other people’s needs in a way that gives you a certain set of skills and boundaries.”
We laugh about how polite we act in other people’s houses, and how care experience manifests as perfectionism. But there’s also a darker side.
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“You end up being a perfectionist in every single bit of you because you’re really scared of being abandoned,” says Willan. “And that’s exhausting. Not everybody can cope with that and that’s why I think we have a lot of… ‘stuff’ happening within the care community where people go AWOL.
“And that’s because we don’t have a system that supports us, but internally I’d say, it’s because it can be really knackering to feel like you have to be perfect to be loved.”
Things are getting better for care experienced people though. Shows like Alma’s Not Normal and the tireless work of creatives like Lemn Sissay (Willan describes him as an “older brother” figure) have led to a more positive, yet still realistic, portrayal of care experienced people in the media and beyond.
Sophie Willan is one of the leading lights in the care experienced community, so it’s hard to imagine a time when she felt she had to hide her identity. But, like many within the community who have faced judgement and stigma, as a young adult she kept this part of her past “under lock and key”.
Willan as Alma. Image: Neil Sherwood / BBC
“I met a lot of care experienced people when I was a teenager and everyone seemed pretty fucked up – including me,” she says. “So I didn’t find it very inspiring. When I started theatre, I used to not tell anybody, because I thought it would stop me from getting work. You know, instead of your experiences being seen as problematic, you are told you’re problematic.
“Then I saw Lemn Sissay perform. And I was like, oh my god, I can talk about this. This is not something I have to be ashamed of. He’s there, successful, doing his thing, and talking about it.”
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Thanks to role models like Willan, a whole new generation of care experienced people feel less alone – as evidenced by the onslaught of messages received by the comedian after the broadcast of Alma’s Not Normal season one.
Today Sophie Willan seems a long way from the early-career actor afraid to tell anyone about her care experience. It’s clear from the warmth and pride you can hear in her voice when she speaks about our community, just how much she’s embraced this part of her identity, and the success it has brought her.
“I look around this house, and I think, ‘Do you know what? I got here directly because of what happened to me,’” she smiles.
“Because I needed to talk about it. And actually, isn’t that amazing?’”
Alma’s Not Normal is on BBC iPlayer as a box set from 7 October
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