Sally Wainwright

Sally Wainwright
Born Sally A Wainwright
1963
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England
Nationality British
Education University of York
Occupation Television writer
Playwright
Years active 2000-present
Known for Last Tango in Halifax
Happy Valley
Scott & Bailey
Spouse(s) Austin Sherlaw-Johnson
Children 2

Sally A Wainwright (born 1963)[1] is an English television writer and playwright.[2][3] She won the 2009 Writer of the Year Award given by the RTS in 2009 for Unforgiven.[4] She is known for work on the BBC dramas Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax.[5][6] Both have won BAFTA's award for best series, and Wainwright was voted best writer.[7]

Early life

Wainwright was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, to Harry Wainwright and Dorothy Wainwright (née Crowther).[8] Wainwright was brought up in Sowerby Bridge where she attended Triangle C of E Primary School and Sowerby Bridge Grammar School.[9] She attended the University of York, reading English and Related Literature.[10] She has an older sister Diane Hilton, a housing professional with The Guinness Partnership.

Wainwright said that she had always wanted to write, and had started writing when she was young, from the time she was 9 years old, and wanted to write for Coronation Street.[11] She said that when she was 16 years old in 1980 she saw a play called Bastard Angel by playwright Barrie Keeffe at Royal Shakespeare Company and was deeply interested in the short sentences and naturalistic approach to dialog.[12]

Career

While at University of York, Wainwright took an original play called Hanging On to the Edinburgh Festival and found an agent, Meg Davis, for her writing in the process.[10] Meanwhile, she worked as a bus driver.[10]

When she was 24, she left the driving job after she started writing for the Radio 4 series The Archers.[11] One of her contributions was to write an atypical story for the long running radio soap in which the village shop was robbed. After that she wrote for Coronation Street, developing her writing skills, from 1994 to 1999. She has since said that working on continuing drama was a great education in discipline and a lesson that great stories are hard work.[13] She was mentored by Kay Mellor who encouraged her to stop writing for soaps and to concentrate instead on original work. She created the TV series At Home with the Braithwaites about a woman who had secretly won the lottery. The programme was nominated for many awards.[14] She won the 2009 Writer of the Year Award given by the RTS in 2009 for Unforgiven which took several awards including best TV series.[4]

Wainwright says that her strong female flawed characters are almost real to her and arrive fully formed in her imagination. She likes to control the television that is created and has done some directing and production of her own work[14] partly to ensure the scenery and dialogue reflects Yorkshire.[15]

In 2011 she wrote Scott & Bailey, a series about two female police officers. The idea for the series came from the leading actresses and former Detective Inspector Diane Taylor, who assisted with bringing the series to the air.[16]

Wainwright based the plot of her series Last Tango in Halifax on the story of her mother who was widowed in 2001. [10] Her mother, Dorothy, moved to Oxfordshire to live with her daughter and rediscovered a lost love, Alec Walker, via Friends Reunited.[10] With her mother's permission, Wainwright developed the story of how she remarried so rapidly, publishing series extracts to her mother before broadcast.[14]

When she told the story to Nicola Shindler, she suggested she turn her mother's experience into a television series. Shindler became the series' executive producer.[17] Both Last Tango in Halifax and her crime series Scott & Bailey were turned down by both the BBC and ITV before both were accepted respectively. The former was voted by BAFTA to be best series in 2012 and Wainwright was given the award for best writer.[7]

Happy Valley, which was shot in Yorkshire's picturesque upper Upper Calder Valley and Hebden Bridge,[18][19] stars Sarah Lancashire, whom Wainwright had in mind as she wrote the role.[20] Wainwright made her directorial debut with episode 4 of the first series.[20]

In May 2015, it was announced that Wainwright would be writing and directing a two-hour drama special for BBC One entitled To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters. It subject is the Brontë family, particularly the relationship the three sisters, Anne, Emily and Charlotte, had with their brother, Branwell. On the drama, Wainwright said that "I am thrilled beyond measure that I've been asked by the BBC to bring to life these three fascinating, talented, ingenious Yorkshire women."[21]

Personal life

In 1990, Wainwright married Ralph "Austin" Sherlaw-Johnson, an antiquarian sheet music dealer.[22][23] They have two sons and own two Maine Coon cats.[14][24]

Wainwright lives in Oxfordshire.

Filmography

Honors

Works and publications

Frequent collaborators

Actor At Home with the Braithwaites (2000-03) Sparkhouse (2002) ShakespeaRe-Told: The Taming of the Shrew (2005) Jane Hall (2006) The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006) Dead Clever (2007) Bonkers (2007) Unforgiven (2009) Scott & Bailey (2010-16) Last Tango in Halifax (2012-present) Happy Valley (2014-present) To Walk Invisble (2016)
Sarah Smart
Rachel Leskovac
Peter Davison
Judy Holt
Ishia Bennison
Siobhan Finneran
Shirley Henderson
Geraldine James
Amer Nazir
Suranne Jones
Jennifer Hennessy
George Costigan
Amelia Bullmore
Sarah Lancashire
Charlie Murphy

References

  1. ↑ "Sally A Wainwright England and Wales Birth Registration Index". FamilySearch. 1963.
  2. 1 2 Wainwright, Sally; Costigan, George; Holt, Judy (22 November 2015). "Sally Wainwright in conversation with George Costigan & Judy Holt" (Video interview). Square Chapel.
  3. ↑ Williams, Zoe (13 August 2016). "Sally Wainwright: 'I don't set out to instruct people. I want to entertain'". The Guardian.
  4. 1 2 "Programme Awards 2009". Royal Television Society Yorkshire.
  5. ↑ Gilbert, Gerard (30 April 2014). "Happy Valley, BBC1 - TV review: Homegrown, Yorkshire-set drama is better than Fargo". The Independent. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  6. ↑ DeWolf Smith, Nancy (14 August 2014). "In Yorkshire's Green but Not Pleasant Land". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 Graham, Alison (2013). "Can't "bold and memorable female characters" be part of any drama?". Radio Times. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  8. ↑ "Last Tango In Halifax: Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid lead cast in a new drama series for BBC One. Interview with writer, Sally Wainwright". BBC One. 11 January 2012.
  9. ↑ "Sally Wainwright: My Yorkshire". Yorkshire Post. 13 June 2011. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Williamson, Charlotte (22 December 2013). "My mother's late-life love is charming the nation". The Telegraph. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  11. 1 2 "2012 Manchester Literature Festival: Q&A with... Sally Wainwright". BBC writersroom. 2012.
  12. ↑ "Sally Wainwright: BBC Writersroom interviews TV writer and playwright, Sally Wainwright (Last Tango in Halifax, Scott & Bailey, Happy Valley)". BBC writersroom. 19 March 2015.
  13. ↑ "Sally Wainwright meets Matthew Barry". BAFTA Guru Encounters. 30 September 2015.
  14. 1 2 3 4 "Sally Wainwright Desert Island Discs" (Broadcast). BBC Radio 4. 5 October 2014. Retrieved 12 November 2014.
  15. ↑ Frost, Vicky (6 June 2014). "Sally Wainwright: 'I like writing women, they're heroic'". The Guardian.
  16. 1 2 "TV cop dramas irritated me, so I made my own, says the former Detective Inspector behind Scott And Bailey". Manchester Evening News. June 2011. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  17. ↑ Wainwright, Sally (9 November 2012). "Can you fall in love at 75? Screenwriter Sally Wainwright on how her mother's sweet late-life romance inspired her new drama". Daily Mail. Associated Newspapers. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  18. ↑ Howe, Liz (30 April 2014). "Sally Wainwright's Happy Valley showcases Yorkshire". Holdsworth House. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  19. ↑ "Last Tango in Halifax writer Sally Wainwright set to start filming new drama in Hebden Bridge". Halifax Courier. 25 September 2013. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  20. 1 2 Jones, Hannah (28 May 2014). "Happy Valley: Writer Sally Wainwright on TV's most talked about show". Wales Online. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  21. ↑ "BBC One announces new drama by award-winner writer Sally Wainwright". BBC Media Centre.
  22. ↑ "Sherlaw-Johnson mentioned in the record of Sherlaw-Johnson and Sally A Wainwright". FamilySearch. 1990.
  23. ↑ Calkin, Jessamy (9 February 2016). "Behind the scenes of Bafta-winning drama Happy Valley". The Daily Telegraph.
  24. ↑ Anthony, Andrew (6 February 2016). "Sally Wainwright: the titan of genuine reality television". The Guardian.
  25. ↑ Lockyer, Daphne (1 July 2006). "In the driving seat". The Times. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
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