Just finished watching both series of BBC’s Alma’s Not Normal. Here we have a young woman, Sophie Willan who has written and acts in a comedy that tackles real social issues of mental health, addiction, children in care and prostitution (escorts) with real heart and laugh out loud humour, without diminishing the seriousness of those issues. She plays the part great, and you can’t help but love her character’s positive outlook and determination. But a real shout out has to go to the brilliant portrayal of her heroin addicted mother by Siobhan Finneran, very funny verbally and physically but painfully sad too.
What makes it even more amazing is that Sophie has written from her own real life experiences being brought up in care being pushed from pillar to post, having a heroin addicted mother and to becoming an escort to help pay her way through her arts career.
She is a Bolton girl, and it is based in Bolton, which given the Bolton accent makes it chuffin funny too.