She's Got No Class!

I’ve always found it really difficult to connect with the conversation about working class representation in the media and I think it’s because I had no concept of where I fit into the class system until the age of 26. Twenty-six! 26.

Before that, in my life, I’d found everyone to have a similar background to me. I hadn’t gone to drama school as I never got a funded place. In those days, (the olden days) not only were the fees extortionate, but if you didn’t get a funded place, you also were not eligible for a student loan. It was financially impossible. I couldn’t imagine who all these people were that could afford it (I can now, it’s basically everyone on TV). I was heartbroken and lost when all my friends went to university but eventually I got a job as a performer at Butlins and it changed my life. BUTLINS!! Imagine you’re a kid with ambitions of being on stage and screen but no idea of how to get there when someone gives you a costume, teaches you a load of songs and dance routines and then PAYS YOU to perform them twice a night. I was ecstatic. After that I moved to London and waited tables in Covent Garden hoping to catch my next break and a few years later, got an acting job on the soap Hollyoaks which changed my life again. I eventually ended up writing on the show for 10 years. I’ve been bloody lucky. Sidenote: In my career over the years I’ve encountered a lot of snobbery around both Butlins and Hollyoaks. HMMMM, I WONDER WHY.

But back to being 26. I went to a party with my new boyfriend at the time, held at his friend’s parent’s house and I was not casual about the fact it was at a massive pad Off Sloane Square. Everyone was so exciting and artistic! It was only when the fifth person of the night asked me which school I’d attended that it dawned on me that “Bridley Moor High” was not the answer they were expecting. Ha! Of course these new friends of mine weren’t middle class, they were something else entirely but it was the first time I’d met anyone like them.

I think half the trouble of working class representation is that a lot of people don’t even think about or KNOW they’re working class until they try and get into a sector like the arts or media. I considered myself ‘normal’. Certainly me and my mates weren’t talking about the inaccessibility of the arts at school. (I remember one of the drama school questions I was asked during interview was, “what theatre have you been to see recently?” I didn’t think my Mum’s am-dram plays or the musical I saw a few years ago would quite cut it so I lied and, remembering a poster I’d seen somewhere, told them I’d seen Judi Dench in As You Like It. But then I got flustered and said, “Or maybe it was Much Ado About Nothing?” It was a blatant lie and I wasn’t convincing. Needless to say, I got rejected for not only being an uncultured philistine but a terrible actor too.)

But I still didn’t believe I was working class. I’m pretentious like that. Not really (well, I am), but I didn’t want to own something that didn’t feel like it was mine. My Dad never did a manual job and my GCSE in Social Science had informed me that I was more than likely middle class. It wasn’t until recently when filling in an equal opportunities monitoring form for a scheme I was applying for did I properly understand my background... Single parent family?  Check. Free school meals? Check (in a time where you had to announce whether you were ‘packed lunch’, ‘school dinners’ or just ‘Free’ to the class as part of registration: FUNNNNNN) State school? Check. University educated? Nope? Checkity check check. I’m working class!!! Whooooooop!

I expect there are still a lot of kids now with dreams of getting into TV who have no idea the barriers they face or why, and they won’t properly understand them until they live them. I’m pleased the current discourse is out there but the issue of the underrepresented working class in the arts and media will prevail, not least because a lot of working class kids have no concept of who they’re up against, the privilege they’ve experienced and the contacts they most certainly already have. I hope they figure it out before I did. At least they have the internet.