Latest news with #ParisLees
Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
BBC accused of ignoring biology with name of new drama about transgender teenager
The BBC has been accused of ignoring biology with its choice of title for a new drama about a transgender teenager. What It Feels Like for a Girl follows the story of Byron, a 15-year-old boy questioning his gender identity while growing up in Nottingham in the early noughties. It is based on the autobiography of Paris Lees, a transgender writer, journalist and trans rights advocate. Gender critical feminists have questioned the programme's title, accusing the broadcaster of being 'regressive' and 'homophobic.' The row comes after the Supreme Court ruled that the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the 2010 Equality Act 'refer to a biological woman and biological sex '. The programme was commissioned before the ruling and the BBC said the title was a reference to the Madonna single released in the era when the series is set. Maya Forstater, who set up the campaign group Sex Matters, said: 'Presenting the idea of an effeminate boy 'becoming a girl' as an edgy coming-of-age story is presenting delusion as self-discovery. 'This series will promote a regressive, dangerous, impossible and fundamentally homophobic dream to another generation of gay young men. 'It is the same unachievable fantasy that motivates the scandal of child gender medicine, which has harmed so many gay teenagers for life.' Conservative London Assembly member Susan Hall, who is a vocal supporter of women's rights, told The Telegraph: 'Sex does matter, we do have to protect women's spaces. 'Whilst the vast majority of trans people just want to lead their lives in peace and don't wish to harm anybody, it has been evident in the past that this isn't always the case. 'I was surprised to hear that the BBC gave it the title it has. Growing up as a girl, I can imagine it is very different growing up as a trans girl.' Byron, played by Ellis Howard, begins a journey of self-discovery and self-destruction to identify as a trans woman as the plot unfolds. The lead character is taken in by a drug dealer called Liam, who begins a relationship with Byron and forces them into selling sex. Howard said he hopes the series 'humanises trans stories', but also 'that it blows the doors off so that more trans stories get made.' Speaking to NME magazine, the 28-year-old added of the drama: 'It's an incredibly authored, queer, working-class story where we really get under the fingernails of a community we don't often see on screen.' Lees explains of the drama: 'This is a proudly working-class story, and it needed a cast who could bring it to life authentically. We've struck gold with these highly talented actors, some of whom are already familiar faces - and some who are about to be. 'The biggest challenge was always the lead role – we're following someone who's going from, in the eyes of the outside world, a schoolboy, right up to a trans woman starting university, and all that's in between. 'The moment I saw Ellis, I recognised something in him - a cheekiness, a delicateness, a complexity - and knew he was the one. 'And he rose to the challenge, again and again. The chemistry between El, Hannah, Laquarn and the rest of the Fallen Divas is something you can only dream of in drama.' A BBC spokesperson said: 'The title is shared with the book and also references the hit early noughties Madonna song released when the series is set. 'The BBC has a rich history of bringing a wide range of culturally significant works and voices to the screen – and adapting Paris Lees' acclaimed memoir is in line with this.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'A cry from the council estate' - the trans teen drama that pulls no punches
What It Feels Like For A Girl. A fairly innocuous title for a teen TV series, right? But the stars of BBC Three's new drama say it's taken on a deeper resonance since the show was filmed last year. That's because it's a coming-of-age story about a gender-questioning teenager growing up in a working class town near Nottingham. And it's hitting our screens just a few weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the terms "woman" and "sex" in the 2010 Equality Act "refer to a biological woman and biological sex". While some groups have celebrated the decision, some trans campaigners have expressed dismay. Given the court's ruling, even the title of the drama is divisive. Some will take issue with it as it is inspired by the autobiography of the same name from trans writer, journalist and trans rights campaigner Paris Lees. And that's because they believe that Lees isn't a woman - and that the Supreme Court judgement supports them. Hannah Jones, who plays sharp-tongued trans sex worker Sasha in the series, acknowledges the timing: "The title of our show changed overnight. You know, the whole meaning of it is exactly what is going on in the news right now. What does it feel like for a girl? The trans narrative is so different for so many people." Maya Forstater, who set up the campaign group Sex Matters, has told the BBC she strongly opposes the drama's narrative: "Presenting the idea of an effeminate boy 'becoming a girl' as an edgy coming-of-age story is presenting delusion as self-discovery." The series is a raw, hedonistic, brutal - but often hilarious - tale of Byron (Ellis Howard), a 15-year-old boy who is trying to find his identity and is desperate to escape the small-mindedness of his home town. In the heady days of the early 2000s, the teen (based on Lees) is taken under the wing of "The Fallen Divas" while clubbing in Nottingham, a group of hedonistic, anarchic outsiders who soon become a second family. But beyond the hardcore party lifestyle, the dark underbelly of an exploitative sex work industry lures Byron in. Local drug dealer Liam - played by Jake Dunn - is an intoxicating influence on Byron, embarking on an underage relationship with this young wannabee while also enticing the youngster into selling sex. Grooming and child abuse are a constant backdrop. "Essentially, he's Byron's pimp," explains Dunn. As can be the case in such instances, Byron is attracted to what he sees as someone with power, his own flat and independence - something he wants himself. "He [Liam] is very enigmatic," explains Dunn. "They [he and Byron] actually share a very similar back story. They sort of become magnetised to each other. [It's like] watching an unstoppable force meet an immovable object. "Part of Liam's obsession and desire towards Byron is because Byron reminds Liam of Liam at that age." Dunn, who hails from Nottingham himself, based Liam "off of two people I knew from Nottingham and a lad from Derby who really stuck in my head when I was a teenager, their voices and the way they acted". He adds: "At times Liam does feel very vulnerable in a strange way, and then he's also really hardened. And I think when you're working class from a place with no prospects, you're a survivalist and you'll do anything. "He looks out for himself in a way that is really scary and coercive." The drama also doesn't shy away from a serious crime committed by Liam and Byron (which led to serious consequences for Lees in real life as a teenager). Lees has previously said that, "for me, personally, the much more interesting journey of this book is the class transition", having become middle class in later life, after growing up working class. "I was living in a different city, I had a different accent, I had a different way of making money, shall we say, a different set of friends. I can't connect that with my life today. And a lot of it is the class thing," Lees told the Guardian in 2021. Dunn says of the drama: "The most exciting intersectionality of it is with the working class. What is that experience going to be for you if you are trans... and you are poor? What is the survivalist mechanism that exists for those people? "It's a hard watch but at no point did the humour leave, at no point did the heart leave. And that's a testament to Paris's life." In a Huffington Post interview in 2019, Lees acknowledged things were easier for her in later life. "I'm probably one of the most privileged trans women in Britain. If you're a LGBTQ kid in a council estate in Manchester and you're getting bullied every time you leave the house, you feel like it's not safe to go to school, and you're seeing all of this horrible stuff in the press – how is that going to make you feel?" Ellis Howard concurs, and says of the book: "I feel like it's a real cry from the council estate. "So you come out swinging as an actor because of how authentic the book is in terms of Paris's experience." Byron lives a very split existence, navigating a difficult home life with a macho father alongside a dangerous, illegal lifestyle on the outside. Things get more challenging when, as an older teenager, Byron begins to transition. There is one stalwart ally in the family though, Byron's beloved granny played by Hannah Walters, who co-produced hit show Adolescence alongside husband Stephen Graham. "We spoke a lot about code switching," Howard tells me. Code switching is the act of changing one's environment to fit in in certain environments. "I think it really highlights the pockets of Byron's life, where Byron is allowed to be who they are and where they aren't, or where they feel comfortable and safe enough to be," Howard says. "You can't do that if you just see all of the the glam and the chaos... we all have to come home, and what does that look like, and how does that feel? And I think it's incredibly pertinent for when someone is trying to figure out who they are. "When you taste authenticity, or when you collide into yourself - once you feel like that, you don't want to ever let it go." He adds that he has experienced this himself. "I feel like that as a queer person. Once you've felt liberation, one never wants to walk backwards, and so to be forced to is such an awful and really draining experience, but I think one that is really important to show on television, because it then begs the question of why our society forces people to do that." The trans teen drama comes in the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling in April this year, that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law. The campaign group For Women Scotland had brought a case against the Scottish government arguing that sex-based protections should only apply to people who are born female. The Scottish government had argued in court that transgender people with a gender recognition certificate were entitled to the same sex-based protections as biological women - but it was defeated. Since the decision, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has issued interim guidance for England, Scotland and Wales for places such as hospitals, shops and restaurants, that says "trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women's facilities". However, part of the Supreme Court judgement stressed that the law still gives protection against discrimination to transgender people. The EHRC also states that trans people should not be left without any facilities to use. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Sex Matters' Maya Forstater, said: "I think every organisation is going to have to tear up their policies and start again. It's much simpler than people have thought. There are men, there are women, there are spaces and services that are for men and women - most spaces and services. "And then there are things that are single sex – and when things are single sex, it's not the start of a negotiation." Laquarn Lewis, who plays the indefatigable Fallen Diva Lady Die in What If Feels Like For a Girl, says the show's characters are "just rebelling against how society is telling them they should be". "And that's exactly what we have to do with the recent law that's just been announced, we have to just rebel. Human rights must exist. The last thing we need to do is focus on such a small demographic who are a minority and just ostracise them and make them feel targeted and become victims." Howard is hopeful the show will be something of a beacon. "It's a really scary time in our culture, politically, and so hopefully what the show does is provides relief, but also community. Because I think we need community. We need structure and safety now more than ever." What It Feels Like For A Girl will be on BBC iPlayer and BBC Three from 3 June.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
What It Feels Like For A Girl: Trans teen drama based on Paris Lees memoir pulls no punches
What It Feels Like For A Girl. A fairly innocuous title for a teen TV series, right? But the stars of BBC Three's new drama say it's taken on a deeper resonance since the show was filmed last because it's a coming-of-age story about a gender-questioning teenager growing up in a working class town near Nottingham. And it's hitting our screens just a few weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the terms "woman" and "sex" in the 2010 Equality Act "refer to a biological woman and biological sex".While some groups have celebrated the decision, some trans campaigners have expressed the court's ruling, even the title of the drama is divisive. Some will take issue with it as it is inspired by the autobiography of the same name from trans writer, journalist and trans rights campaigner Paris Lees. And that's because they believe that Lees isn't a woman - and that the Supreme Court judgement supports Jones, who plays sharp-tongued trans sex worker Sasha in the series, acknowledges the timing: "The title of our show changed overnight. You know, the whole meaning of it is exactly what is going on in the news right now. What does it feel like for a girl? The trans narrative is so different for so many people."Maya Forstater, who set up the campaign group Sex Matters, has told the BBC she strongly opposes the drama's narrative: "Presenting the idea of an effeminate boy 'becoming a girl' as an edgy coming-of-age story is presenting delusion as self-discovery."The series is a raw, hedonistic, brutal - but often hilarious - tale of Byron (Ellis Howard), a 15-year-old boy who is trying to find his identity and is desperate to escape the small-mindedness of his home the heady days of the early 2000s, the teen (based on Lees) is taken under the wing of "The Fallen Divas" while clubbing in Nottingham, a group of hedonistic, anarchic outsiders who soon become a second family. But beyond the hardcore party lifestyle, the dark underbelly of an exploitative sex work industry lures Byron in. Local drug dealer Liam - played by Jake Dunn - is an intoxicating influence on Byron, embarking on an underage relationship with this young wannabee while also enticing the youngster into selling sex. Grooming and child abuse are a constant backdrop."Essentially, he's Byron's pimp," explains can be the case in such instances, Byron is attracted to what he sees as someone with power, his own flat and independence - something he wants himself. "He [Liam] is very enigmatic," explains Dunn."They [he and Byron] actually share a very similar back story. They sort of become magnetised to each other. [It's like] watching an unstoppable force meet an immovable object."Part of Liam's obsession and desire towards Byron is because Byron reminds Liam of Liam at that age."Dunn, who hails from Nottingham himself, based Liam "off of two people I knew from Nottingham and a lad from Derby who really stuck in my head when I was a teenager, their voices and the way they acted". He adds: "At times Liam does feel very vulnerable in a strange way, and then he's also really hardened. And I think when you're working class from a place with no prospects, you're a survivalist and you'll do anything."He looks out for himself in a way that is really scary and coercive."The drama also doesn't shy away from a serious crime committed by Liam and Byron (which led to serious consequences for Lees in real life as a teenager). Lees has previously said that, "for me, personally, the much more interesting journey of this book is the class transition", having become middle class in later life, after growing up working class."I was living in a different city, I had a different accent, I had a different way of making money, shall we say, a different set of friends. I can't connect that with my life today. And a lot of it is the class thing," Lees told the Guardian in says of the drama: "The most exciting intersectionality of it is with the working class. What is that experience going to be for you if you are trans... and you are poor? What is the survivalist mechanism that exists for those people?"It's a hard watch but at no point did the humour leave, at no point did the heart leave. And that's a testament to Paris's life."In a Huffington Post interview in 2019, Lees acknowledged things were easier for her in later life."I'm probably one of the most privileged trans women in Britain. If you're a LGBTQ kid in a council estate in Manchester and you're getting bullied every time you leave the house, you feel like it's not safe to go to school, and you're seeing all of this horrible stuff in the press – how is that going to make you feel?" Ellis Howard concurs, and says of the book: "I feel like it's a real cry from the council estate."So you come out swinging as an actor because of how authentic the book is in terms of Paris's experience."Byron lives a very split existence, navigating a difficult home life with a macho father alongside a dangerous, illegal lifestyle on the get more challenging when, as an older teenager, Byron begins to transition. There is one stalwart ally in the family though, Byron's beloved granny played by Hannah Walters, who co-produced hit show Adolescence alongside husband Stephen Graham."We spoke a lot about code switching," Howard tells me. Code switching is the act of changing one's environment to fit in in certain environments."I think it really highlights the pockets of Byron's life, where Byron is allowed to be who they are and where they aren't, or where they feel comfortable and safe enough to be," Howard says."You can't do that if you just see all of the the glam and the chaos... we all have to come home, and what does that look like, and how does that feel? And I think it's incredibly pertinent for when someone is trying to figure out who they are. "When you taste authenticity, or when you collide into yourself - once you feel like that, you don't want to ever let it go."He adds that he has experienced this himself."I feel like that as a queer person. Once you've felt liberation, one never wants to walk backwards, and so to be forced to is such an awful and really draining experience, but I think one that is really important to show on television, because it then begs the question of why our society forces people to do that." The trans teen drama comes in the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling in April this year, that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities campaign group For Women Scotland had brought a case against the Scottish government arguing that sex-based protections should only apply to people who are born female. The Scottish government had argued in court that transgender people with a gender recognition certificate were entitled to the same sex-based protections as biological women - but it was the decision, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has issued interim guidance for England, Scotland and Wales for places such as hospitals, shops and restaurants, that says "trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women's facilities". However, part of the Supreme Court judgement stressed that the law still gives protection against discrimination to transgender people. The EHRC also states that trans people should not be left without any facilities to the Supreme Court ruling, Sex Matters' Maya Forstater, said: "I think every organisation is going to have to tear up their policies and start again. It's much simpler than people have thought. There are men, there are women, there are spaces and services that are for men and women - most spaces and services. "And then there are things that are single sex – and when things are single sex, it's not the start of a negotiation."Laquarn Lewis, who plays the indefatigable Fallen Diva Lady Die in What If Feels Like For a Girl, says the show's characters are "just rebelling against how society is telling them they should be". "And that's exactly what we have to do with the recent law that's just been announced, we have to just rebel. Human rights must exist. The last thing we need to do is focus on such a small demographic who are a minority and just ostracise them and make them feel targeted and become victims."Howard is hopeful the show will be something of a beacon."It's a really scary time in our culture, politically, and so hopefully what the show does is provides relief, but also community. Because I think we need community. We need structure and safety now more than ever."What It Feels Like For A Girl will be on BBC iPlayer and BBC Three from 3 June.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The new Y2K coming-of-age BBC series filmed in South Wales
Fans of British dramas will be transported back to the early 00s, as the new coming-of-age BBC series, What It Feels Like For A Girl, will soon be on our screens. The eight part series is based on the memoir of the same name by writer and journalist Paris Lees. The series starts in the new millennium and follow Byron, played by Ellis Howard, who is a teenage stuck in a small working-class town that hasn't been the same since the coal mine shut in the 80s. The actor described the series, saying: "It's the story of someone who has grown up in a small town with people who aren't like them, dreaming of a life bigger and bolder" For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter. READ MORE: Tom Jones played matchmaker for another huge Welsh singer READ MORE: Wales breaking news plus weather and traffic updates (Wednesday, May 28) The series, tackles gender identity, what makes a family, class, sexuality and friendship as Byron attempts to break free from the confinement of their small town, and instead embarks on a new vibrant life of partying in Nottingham's underworld. Ellis said: "The show has a real bite to it and feels anarchic, punk and edgy, but also joyful and has a real lightness of touch and wit. The characters are misfits, punks, living on the fringes of society and use their acid tongues as a defence mechanism, giving the show wit and banter whilst also delivering a severe emotional punch. "Hopefully, people will stay for the love and joy but will be heartbroken by the depths that the series goes to. It doesn't shy away from telling the truth; it has trauma and grasps the human experience. If you're looking at the series through a queer lens and perspective, those things are just magnified tenfold. "As a queer person, not only are you wrestling with these things, but you're also wrestling with who you are, as well as experiencing them." The actor, who is also queer, enjoyed playing the role of Byron as they so similarities and stark differences between their own life and the life of their character. They said: "Byron finds themself in this mad queer space with a crazy eclectic gang of friends. It's an experience I didn't have growing up as queer, and it's one that I have found through filming and building a relationship with the cast." The series was filmed in both South Wales and Nottingham, where the series is set. The author of the memoir, grew up in the city and the series is largely based on their life growing up queer in a traditional working class town. Paris said: "At its core, the story is inspired by my life and all my unique past experiences. Growing up, my friends and I were the only openly out young people in Nottingham. Even in the past decade, things have changed drastically. "Back then, we were on the outskirts of society, and people thought we were too young to be transitioning. This is ultimately a coming-of-age story, and like many coming-of-age tales, it's about the people we lose and gain along the way." They continued: "As a working-class trans woman, I've never had the opportunity to tell my story in this way before. I've never seen a trans character represented in this way on British television. Someone cool, edgy, and imperfect. I'm not a perfect trans woman, and I don't want to be a role model. I'm a hot mess, and I have the right to be just as messy as anyone else. "There's a reason why the trans community hasn't had a voice in television like this before, and I hope this series will resonate with anyone who feels marginalised or lives on the edge of society. I want this story to make people feel heard." View this post on Instagram A post shared by P A R I S L E E S (@ The journalist and writer, said that she was thrilled that they cast Ellis as Byron and that something about the actor stuck out straight away. Paris explained: "He brought a certain naughtiness to the role, which shines through in the series. Byron is such a complex character, going from being a schoolboy to a trans woman and everything in between; it is a challenging role. Byron is the central character, but Byron is also based on me, so getting the casting right was crucial. For me, Ellis was the perfect choice!" All episodes of What It Feels Like For A Girl will be available on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Tuesday, June 3 , and air on BBC Three and BBC One from that night.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘All of us felt like we had touched gold': What It Feels Like for a Girl, the BBC's electric coming-of-age tale
When the BBC was casting its adaptation of Paris Lees's autobiography, What It Feels Like for a Girl, it wasn't the only one wrestling with how to find the right actor to play the lead in a biopic. 'Cher did an interview,' smiles Lees, 'and she said: 'We just can't find somebody that's Cher.' I was like: 'Same, girl. I hear your struggles.' So me and Cher have been going through it.' Sitting next to Lees is the actor they went with, Ellis Howard, who you may remember as the sapling Ivan VI in HBO series Catherine the Great, but who you will never have seen being this luminous. 'In the beginning, we were looking for a trans person,' Lees says. She and Howard are sharing a Zoom screen, and it's not so much that they look similar as that they both look so cinematic, they seem to match – 'But then I just knew, the moment I saw Ellis, that this cheeky, cheeky person could do it.' Lees is known in the public eye via a series of triumphant firsts: the first trans columnist for Vogue, the first trans woman to present on Radio 1, on Channel 4. But her early life was harsh, brutal at times. She was relentlessly bullied at school for being gay, and carried the weight of her father's homophobia, expressed in both formless anger and embarrassment. She became a 'rent boy' when she was 14, but was astonished when she read, in a review of her book in Grazia that she'd been abused. 'Then I thought: 'Hang on a minute. What else would you call that?' It took me a while to realise that was abusive. When people are vulnerable, when they're told they're worthless, that they're almost half a person, you seek validation in the wrong places. It makes me incredibly sad, but it was really important to show my perspective at that time, not my perspective now.' Howard's performance is exquisite: subtle and daring, true to the fact that it would be years before the teenage sex work processed as a violation – and at the time Lees was thrilled about earning all those fivers. 'When you force people into the shadows, don't be surprised when they go fucking dark,' Howard says. 'You've got to silence the part of your brain that goes: 'I am an adult, I am a leftwing progressive.' You've got to go to a place of wonderment and curiosity.' Paris Lees's perspective in the book, which comes across as strongly on the screen, is joyful – this is an incredibly buoyant coming-of-age story, as Howard describes. 'When we were cast, all of us felt like we had touched gold, here. Whether it's our queerness, whether it's our class, whether it's the scars we've been given that make us feel so seen by it, everyone came to give it their all. How often do you get these unicorn projects, that feel so alive? It felt so rare.' Lees gives her adolescent self the pseudonym Byron, and their story opens in 2000, when things were bleak as hell for a gay teenager in a suburban, declining bit of Nottinghamshire. But this is very much not how they felt at the time: 'I definitely had a sense that things are getting better,' says Lees. 'We thought this was the end of history. I had this sense that people were living longer, wages were going up, flights were getting cheaper, they were cloning sheep. It felt like there was going to be more democracy, there was hope, there was a future. We were going to get there with gay rights. I didn't dare to believe we'd get there with the other stuff.' It's beautifully told in the drama, through friendships with divas and ketamine in nightclubs, that to be young in that era may have felt like a train wreck, but didn't feel hopeless. Howard, who was born in 1997, chips in, 'I'm nostalgic for a time I wasn't born in. Listening to P talk about the possibility of Blair and Brown, talk about a time when the NHS functioned, when school ceilings weren't caving in on people's heads, maybe I've doctored that into my brain, but I feel like I can remember a time when progress was possible. Although if I'm honest, my political awareness really began with austerity.' If homophobic bullying was a thing of the past by the 2010s, 'God, no one told my fucking school,' he says. 'No one told Norris Green in Liverpool. I was definitely ostracised. I come from a family of 'aaaah' blokes [impossible to fully convey the meaning, or mad charm of that 'aaaah' - sort of aggro and in-your-face]. I just had this unwavering sense of, I won't be bullied. You're not gonna get me. One of the reasons why I felt so seen by the book, is because this is a kid who was resilient to a mythic level. Your conditions can harden you. That was my experience of school, anyway.' The double-edged nostalgia for that time – post-industrial drudgery leavened by the smell of escape – is particularly poignant to watch now. Nobody in 2000 (trust me on this, I was there) would have predicted that 25 years later, trans people would be openly vilified in the media and drag queens castigated as perverts. It feels as if we inched forward to Scandinavia on LGBTQI+ rights, only to hurtle back to Weimar. Lees says it's more complicated than that. 'It feels like there's been a weird reversal. The public conversation in the media and politics has become very toxic. But think back: when did you ever see somebody working in Boots, that was trans, in the year 2000? When was your GP trans? When were trans people ever allowed to participate in life or society? Nobody had a job; you either had to be a prostitute or you had to not be out.' She breaks off – 'I'm a little bit guarded about this, because it's obviously relevant, but I don't want everything I do to be framed within trans activism. I hate it when people call me a trans activist. I'm not involved in activism now. Obviously, I am trans. I can't escape that. I feel like I could have died, somebody could have shot me, I could have been revived on the operating table, and the headline would still be about being trans.' Both Lees and Howard see What It Feels Like … as being an exploration of the marginalisation of poverty at least as much as it is about trans identity – if not more so. Again, it's complicated: sometimes sex and gender identity cancels out class identity, in the sense that Lees thinks 'being trans has possibly opened doors for me that wouldn't have [otherwise] been opened, to a working-class person'. Other times, the world demands that you pick a lane. 'Often times, as an actor, as a writer, I'm thinking, who am I today? Am I this scrappy working-class kid? Or am I the sensitive queer boy? And those things can't reconcile. To be swallowed in this industry, one has to present oneself in a fixed way. Who gets to live authentically is so determined by your class.' She adds: 'It's a really big part of my identity, just coming from a scarcity mindset. When you grow up and you've got nothing, that has a huge effect on how I live my life, how I think about things, my sense of internal safety and security.' 'Drama is so fucking posh,' Lees continues – not with indignation, almost amused, like she knows she speaks for pretty well everyone but the rest of the world are too polite to mention it. 'I'm just so sick of it. We love all the actors with the posh accents, I get it, but let's just make the space for some other people. It's so boring, the Jane Austenness of it all, the comedy of manners; let's have some real messy stories about real shit that happens. I love that we've got so many working-class actors on this show. The only place working-class people are represented is reality TV. I've had enough of the double-barrelled names. Working-class people are lyrical, we're just not given a voice.' And if it's a rare oversight by the class gatekeepers that this messy, exuberant story got on to TV, it also breaks out of a predictable aesthetic. 'It's so gorgeous to be in a working-class project that is extended beyond the kitchen sink, something that has so much colour and is so visually arresting,' says Howard. 'It has a cinematic feel and scale that is normally only lent to middle-class stories [but is here] given to a working-class story set in the Midlands.' The whole thing has been a white-knuckle ride from the start, Lees says, 'A bit like if they said: 'We're gonna take a picture of you naked. It's going to be displayed in public. But don't worry, we're going to get good people in, you'll have lots of creative control.' Are you ever going to be happy with that picture? This is made out of my core memories.' It has led, however, to Lees's relationship with Howard – part spirit-animal, part younger-self transformed – as well as some other beautiful performances. Both single out Laura Haddock as Byron's mother, who Lees says managed to powerfully channel her mum, without necessarily looking very alike. And the ensemble of fallen divas – endearing, spiky performances from Laquarn Lewis and Hannah Jones, was 'such a headfuck for me', Lees says, as 'there are the actual fallen divas, the real people. Then there are the characters that I created, based on them, in the book. Then there's the TV interpretations, and the actors playing them, who formed their own breakaway group. A lot of what you see on screen, that is just them fucking around.' What It Feels Like for a Girl starts 3 June, 9pm, BBC Three.
