| Sophie Willan | |
| Birth Date: | 21 October 1987 |
| Birth Place: | Bolton, Greater Manchester, England |
| Occupation: | Comedian, actress, narrator and writer |
| Known For: | Alma's Not Normal |
Sophie Willan (born 21 October 1987) is an English actress, narrator, writer and comedian. She has won two BAFTAs for her television sitcom Alma's Not Normal.
Sophie Willan was born on 21 October 1987,[1] [2] in Bolton where she grew up, and spent time in care as a child,[3] [4] as her mother was a heroin addict.[5] She later worked as an escort to fund her arts career.
Willan began her arts career in theatre, founding feminist theatre/cabaret group Eggs Collective.[6]
Willan's stand up takes inspiration from her unusual life experiences. In 2015 she won the Magners New Comedian of the Year award.
In 2016 she took her debut stand-up series On Record, based on her experiences of growing up in and out of the care system, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A nationwide tour followed in 2017, including 10 dates at London's Soho Theatre and a commission to adapt the show into a BBC Radio 4 series, with a second series being greenlit.
Her second show Branded was an exploration of the labels applied to Willan by other people.[7] In the show she addressed her past as a sex worker.[8] The show received a positive review in The Guardian.[9] Willan performed the show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017, receiving a Herald Angel Award and a nomination for Best Show.
Willan is the narrator of Channel 4’s The Circle and joined the cast of Still Open All Hours (BBC One) and Click & Collect (BBC One). She portrayed Carol in Series 4 of sketch show Class Dismissed (CBBC) and has performed comedy on Live from The Comedy Store[10] (Comedy Central) As Yet Untitled (Dave) and The Last Leg Correspondents (C4).[11]
She has also been nominated as a Chortle Best Newcomer, honoured on the BBC New Talent Hot List and became the first recipient of the BBC’s Caroline Aherne Comedy Bursary.[12] She was a South Bank Sky Arts Award Best Breakthrough Nominee in 2018.[13]
In 2020, following the success of the pilot episode, Willan's sitcom Alma's Not Normal, which she wrote and stars in as the title character Alma Nuthall, was commissioned for a full series by BBC Two and broadcast in 2021. The Mirror called it ‘Phoenix Nights meets Fleabag, guided by the spirit of Victoria Wood’;[14] The Times said, ‘Willan's writing is skilled and clearly very personal...uplifting and strangely enchanting’.[15]
In 2023, Willan appeared as Maeve in the second series of BBC One prison drama Time.[16]
Willan appeared as a contestant on the seventeenth series of the Channel 4 show Taskmaster which launched in March, 2024.[17] Previewing the first episode, the Guardian's Phil Harrison commented that "Already, Willan looks like a potential all-timer contestant".[18]
Willan won a BAFTA Television Craft Award for Best Writer: Comedy for the pilot of Alma's Not Normal. At the 2022 British Academy Television Awards, Willan was awarded the Best Female Comedy Performance for her performance in the series, which was nominated for Best Scripted Comedy.
In 2022, Willan received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bolton for her contribution to television and comedy.[19]
In 2015, Willan secured funding of over £100,000 to create the multi-platform literary project Stories of Care, creating and curating short stories written by fellow care leavers. The project recruited care leavers across North West England to take part in the creation of a published children's anthology for looked-after children.[20]