ISY SUTTIE

11 or 12, I used to be commissioned to write love songs.

By whom?

By my friends, and I started this service called Isy and Joe’s Dating Agency with my best friend, Jo, and girls would come to us and say, I fancy this guy, he’s got brown hair, he’s got blue eyes, and he likes Port Valel football team. And then I’d write a song about this boy, and then we’d somehow get him a cassette tape recording of the song or perform it to him in an attempt to make him go out with the girl. But unfortunately, we were 100% unsuccessful.

Hello, I’m Laura Shavin, and this is The Offcuts Drawer, the show that looks inside a writer’s bottom drawer to find the bits of work they never finished, had rejected, or couldn’t quite find a home for. We bring them to life, hear the stories behind them, and learn how these random pieces of creativity pave the way to subsequent success. On today’s show, comedian, actor, and writer Isy Suttie shares the contents of her Offcuts Draw. And it’s an interesting mix that includes some teenage angst, a bit of stand-up comedy drama, and an outtake from her recent first novel, Jane Is Trying. Isy originally trained as an actor and started performing stand-up in 2002. She’s won three comedy awards, written and starred in her own BBC radio serieses, but she’s probably best known for one of her many TV acting roles, in this case playing Dobby in Channel 4’s hit series, Peep Show. Her stand-up involved performing comedy songs, which she’d been writing since she was 12. And when I chatted to her, we compared notes about our respective musical educations.

Weirdly, I went to a school where there was quite a lot of emphasis on performance. And I was in choir and everything, but I didn’t do music at GCSE or A-level. I don’t really know. I think I was just so into playing the guitar and writing music. I sort of didn’t care so much about theory or kind of more structural side of it, I suppose.

I learned the piano and I loved it. And then I got to about 12, 13 and thought, I don’t need this. I’m going to write my own songs. And I never want to look at another piece of music ever again. Yes. So constantly I was stuck at grade five. That’s as far as I ever got.

That’s interesting. So I got to grade four piano, sort of for that reason as well. I think I was just like, right, I’ve done it now. I want to move on. I don’t want to fight to get to kind of grade seven or eight. Like, yeah.

I want to express myself.

That’s the important thing.

Not these old dead people. That’s what I want to be a play. Okay, well, let’s get started with your first off-cut. Can you tell us what it’s called, when it was written and what genre it was written for?

So this is from April, 2016. And it’s a radio script for a show called Annie’s Hall.

All right. I’m Annie. You’re inside my head here in my every thought. Usually thoughts like, biscuit, biscuit, biscuit, pint, biscuit, biscuit, wee, bed. Oh, go on then. One more biscuit. Oh, go on then. One more wee, bed. It’s nice and warm here in my head. Go on, nestle between my squidgy old brain and me right ear drum while I walk to work. Actually don’t, that’s a bit gross. Oh, hang on. What’s the umbrella etiquette these days, over or under? Monocled crustacean approaching fast with ridiculously oversized umbrella, probably free from his golf club. Me, wimpy little thing from boots, more like a dopey baby bat. Don’t think I’m going under just because I’m a girl, sir. In fact, I’ll go over just to prove a point.

There we go.

Just took approximately 40 leaves off that hedge.

Worth it.

Don’t let the idiots grind you down, like me dad used to say, amongst other things like eat your greens and now leave me alone, I’m grouting. We died two years ago, which is why I came back to Derwent from the bright lights of Derby. Oh, don’t worry, you weren’t to know. I’m out of that stage where I can use dad going as an excuse to slop around in tracky bottoms, scoffing angel delight and watching terrible TV. I’ve never needed an excuse for that. In case you’re wondering, this is what dad sounded like.

Annie, do not go down that slide without supervision. You’re so stubborn. I hope that’s peanut butter in your hair and not…

Ah, that memory’s from when I was 10. Here’s another from the archives.

You’re the greatest daughter anyone could wish for. No one should ever have any more children because they’ll never be as good as you. I cannot vouch for the truthfulness of this memory. It might have been made up by Annie.

Dad left me with two things, asthma and an old hole. The asthma’s a walk in the park, a slow walk, mind, compared to the hole. The hole’s been in our family for generations. Mum and dad got married in it. They even spent their retirement sealing up mouse holes and trying to persuade the local WI group not to do seances in the men’s loos.

When I pop off, I’m going to leave you the hole, dad said. It’s not much to look at, but nor’s its new owner, he quipped.

That’s you, he helpfully elaborated.

Your mum’d only mess it up. She tries to put cassette tapes into the DVD player. But you, Annie, you’re sturdy. Not in a bad way. You’re like a beech tree or a fish slice. Just there. Dependable. You’re not going anywhere. Now, leave me alone. I’m grouting.

I really like this piece. Tell me about it. What was the plan with it?

Thanks. It’s so nice to hear it done. Because when I wrote it, I imagined that I might play Annie. And it wasn’t actually that long after my dad had died. It was what was sort of five years afterwards, but it doesn’t actually seem that long. And it’s absolutely lovely to hear other people do it. I wrote it after I went away for a kind of residential with some other women to a beautiful kind of hall.

When you say residential, you’re talking, what does that mean? Like a residential course or just for on a holiday?

No, it was organized by Radio 4 or the comedy department. And it was a kind of, basically people came in and talked to us about who’d had very successful series on radio and talked to us about how they wrote it. And there were lots of different workshops and things like that. And at the end, we all had to pitch our ideas, which we thought of, I think it was a few days that we were away at least a couple of nights. And I thought of the title Annie’s Hall, which was a pun on Annie Hall. Yeah. So yes, I think I might have thought of the title before the premise, which sometimes isn’t brilliant. I remember doing that with bands at school, sort of thinking of the title of the band and what our album would be called and what the art work would be like and all having big arguments about it before we’d even written a single song. So I sort of had to think about what is it about? And then I like with radio the fact that it’s different from something visual in this way, isn’t it? That you can have the dad just coming in and talking. And because at those points, you’re in Annie’s head and this script goes on to her in scenes, doesn’t it, interacting with people like a normal sitcom, I suppose. But you have got these monologues and you can hear her dad talking. And I really liked the freedom that it gave me to be able to do that. Whereas obviously with telly, it’s a little bit more tricky to do something like that. Do you have this disembodied head of the father appearing, talking or? Yeah, so, yeah, I learned an awful lot from writing it. I was very nervous pitching it and they did commission this pilot. Oh wow, did you get made then? Didn’t get made. So they commissioned me to write the pilot and then I have it in and then it didn’t get made. It didn’t, you know, it was so many things do you get rejected. I don’t know, I don’t remember what the reason was, but it would have been lovely. Was it already, had you, in my head I cast myself as Annie. I think I, yeah, I think I’d, without asking him, had cast Chris Addison as Ben, who’s Annie’s love interest. And then I wanted, then there’s Meg. I think I could have played Meg as well, who’s a bit ditzy as she works with Annie in the hall. I would have been happy for someone else to play Annie. I would have stood aside. Would you? Yeah, I think I would actually. I think in my earlier days, I sort of couldn’t imagine writing stuff for the people, not because I wanted to star in everything necessarily, but that I wrote, but because I just was kind of stretching. It felt too much of a stretch or too much of a jump. And I think as time’s gone on, I feel more able to, and that I would like to write stuff for the people that I wouldn’t be in. But I think at that point, it was, yeah, it was too much of a jump to.

So was all the early writing that you did, was it all to be performed by yourself, would you say? Or did you ever write anything before this that might have been for other people?

I think it was all to be performed by me because something that we’re gonna have a bit later, I would have been into, because it was based on my Edinburgh show. A lot of things came off the back of Edinburgh shows, which were standup and character stuff that I’d written and performed. So, but the only time that when I worked on skins, that wasn’t for me. So I used to be kind of in the comedy team on skins. So looking at, didn’t write any scripts.

So you punch it up, so to speak. They showed you the scripts and you went, here’s a funny line you could put in here.

Yeah, and then sometimes it was, I mean, skins is an interesting one, because sometimes they had very serious storylines and quite harrowing stuff that you didn’t feel, you felt like it would be kind of bursting the bubble if someone slipped on a banana skin in the middle of this scene. So it was just completely inappropriate. It would kind of take all the heat out of this moment. And then at other times it was quite cartoon-like and there were kind of very silly bits and that was what I really liked about it. You never really knew.

Well, I noticed they did seem to employ mainly comedians for the adult parts. So I was thinking there’s Harry Enfield and there’s Chris Addison.

Yes, that’s true. I think I had Arabella Weir was in it. Yeah, you’re right.

More Wenner Banks and yeah. So I figured you could sort of spot the comedy potential there, but they actually brought you and you were, what was your title?

My title was comedy consultant, which sounds so grand. And the other thing is that there were proper writing rooms like in America and I haven’t really seen that much over here, but then I don’t really write very much on telly shows and that might have changed now, but it felt like a new thing. And the writer of that episode would get up and talk about their idea and we’d go into such detail. And yeah, it was learnt so much. Couldn’t believe the amount of prep that went in before they put pen to paper.

Well, it was a very good series. I must admit, I very much enjoyed it once I got over the shock of going, Harry Enfield playing a serious part. I don’t believe that for a second, but okay. Well, let’s move on to your next off-cut. What is that one, please?

These are poems that I wrote when I was a teenager.

A friend, you want to be everything, and I want to be something. You want to be everybody, and I just want to be somebody. The bright lights, the music, the adrenaline rush. We all experience it, but only some can feel it. That to me is a flashback of my life. That to you is yesterday’s dinner. Someone successful gives it their all. You’re just thinking about some lad that you met in Regent House yesterday. He had long hair and liked pulp. And what’s the bet that so did you? Or the other one from Sheffield Station who was in the Army and into Bobby Brown. What’s the bet that so were you? Or the sexists, the racists, and the fascist jerks that you twisted your views to accommodate. You want to be liked by everybody, and I want to be liked by somebody. You.

Energy. If trees were made of plastic, if grass from elastic, I could never stop liking you. If poison blocked the way, if clothes began to fray, I could never stop liking you. If beautiful people were a lie, if someone found the top of the sky, if centuries passed by, we were unable to cry. If hyenas could laugh no more, if everybody was poor, if there was no law, I could never like you more. If books made no sense, if barriers were too dense, if people stopped talking our language, if they pledged to ban the sandwich, if everyone was a thug, if electricity was unplugged, I could never ever like you more. If the world stopped turning, if the world started burning, if you were crying, if you were dying, I could never ever love you.

Thank you A misdirection there, in typical comedian fashion. That’s a surprise punchline.

I think you’re very generous. I think that’s so badly written on the whole.

How old were you when you wrote them?

Not badly written, that’s a bit hard on myself. I just think they’re so affected in places. I was probably about 14 or 15, and I know that, because around that age, I became obsessed with people being false and fake. I think that’s reflected in, especially the first one.

Yeah, your friend who was a bit of a goer.

Yes, yes.

Who in my eyes kind of changed herself to accommodate fascists’ views. I didn’t even know what the word fascist meant. I think looking at early poetry, probably from other people as well, is often funny because it’s like a reflection of often the anger that you feel as a teenager. I felt that especially being in a small town that I deemed to be quite boring and now know to be very beautiful, but I didn’t appreciate it at the time. And sort of the writer that you want to be, that you desperately want to be, but that you can’t be yet because you haven’t really experienced life. So it becomes this sort of amalgamation of this frustration and then this affectation that I find actually sort of quite endearing to look back on and they weren’t nice to hear in a way, but I have to say I am glad that my writing has moved on from that stage.

So would you say that you wanted to be a writer at that point? Were you trying to be a writer?

I was definitely trying. What I wanted to do, I always said I wanted to act. Ever since I could speak, I think there was absolutely never any other plan apart from there were about two weeks where I got into Wimbledon and decided to be a tennis champion, then played tennis. Really got so cross with my parents for the fact they hadn’t recognised this talent in me, despite the fact that I’d never played tennis. Decided to go every day at 6am to catch up on miss time. And that was at age 13. And then I went once and hated it and was awful. And then said, okay, well, I’ll be an actress then. That’ll be easier. So yeah, I always wanted to go to drama school, always wanted to go to London. And then as I got older and when I started to write songs, which was when I was about 11 or 12 and play the guitar, then it kind of expanded into, I want to write things as well as perform. So it was initially just acting. And then I used to write kind of little sketches and things with my sister when I was little. So yeah, I think it was kind of-

Was it a family thing though? I mean, I know your mother was a musical person and also you quote her sometimes in your act, you read funny letters that she’s written. Although does she know she’s being funny?

It’s half and half. So she’s got a great sense of humor. And my dad had a great sense of humor as well. And they were very funny together in different ways. He was quite dry and had quite a sort of warped sense of humor, whereas she’s a bit more naive and odd. They went very well together. So there’s a naivety there. She doesn’t know that she’s being funny. And then at times I’ve had to say to her, can you write me? When I used to put her letters in my Edinburgh shows and things, I used to sometimes say, you need to write me another 10 minutes. I’ve only got 50 minutes and it’s August in two days. So then she can quite quickly produce them as well. But I always think they’re a bit funnier when she doesn’t write them with a view to them being performed. Yeah. My sister isn’t a performer. She’s got a kind of proper job, as they say, but she’s still a very creative person and she’s also funny. And my mum played a lot of instruments when we were growing up. So there was definitely a freedom in the house, I suppose, too. There was often a lot of laughter. That was the main thing, yeah.

And there was no condemnation or discouragement about being a performer or a creator.

No, not at all. And actually, mum had got into East 15 drama school when she was about 20 and then for various reasons, didn’t go and became a nurse, which she enjoyed. But I think it wasn’t like she was like, you go and pursue the dream that I had. But she definitely had it in her blood. My dad’s auntie, who was very dear to me, who passed away recently, she was in her 90s when she passed away and she wrote comic songs as well and performed them with her friend. I think on both sides, there’s been this, and yes, it was not discouraged at all. We used to put on a lot of plays. We used to charge them to watch, had no choice.

Very clever. Good. That’s unusually sensible.

Yes, exactly. Yes, I was starting my own business at eight. That registered.

And starring you and your sister, anyone else, did you have family, friends or kids of?

Yes, family, friends, often people would come and stay and they’d be roped in. And I was often in charge. I remember doing one called Mrs. Morello’s Hat Shop.

Mrs. Morello’s Hat Shop, did you?

Yes, and I think it was a kind of rip off of Mr. Ben, you know? Yes, I think it was a hat shop and we had a dressing up box with lots of hats in it. And people would come into the hat shop and put, I haven’t thought about this for years. Yeah, they’d put a hat on, they’d be transported back to an era that the hat represented and have to kind of solve some sort of problem, then come back to the present. And I remember being really bossy with telling my sister to color in a piece of scenery. It was a dragon for some reason, and I’d written, I’d drawn a few scales. This is on a piece of paper, I’d drawn what I wanted, how I wanted her to decorate it. And I’d drawn a few scales on the dragon’s body, then I’d written the word scales, as in do scales all over it. And she copied it exactly. She copied the scales I’d done and then copied the word scales. She was probably only about four. And then I went absolutely ballistic.

No, I didn’t mean the word scales.

Why would you do that? Obviously, the dragon’s got scales on its body. So I think it’s probably quite good that I didn’t go into stage management.

Or directing, or producing.

Just like the worst kind of directing.

Artistic temperament. No, I didn’t mean it like that.

Do it better, be funnier.

And from there, a diva was born. Right, well, let’s move on to the next one. What have you got for your next off-cut, please?

So actually, this ties in with us just talking about my mum. These are diary extracts and stand-up material from 2007.

Original diary extract. Today, I did rock climbing and pond dipping. When we had to write our names down for the activities, I saw the name Terry Tooth. I said to Ruth really loudly, Terry Tooth, what kind of name is that? And then I heard, That’s me in a booming voice. Terry Tooth was standing there. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

The same passage translated to and from Maltese. Today did rock climbing and pond pond. When we had to write our names for activities, seen the name Terry Tooth. I said to Ruth really strong, Terry Tooth, what kind of name is that? And then I heard, that’s me, strong, common voice. Dental Terry was there. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

In Kurdish, today I am going to experience emotions and puzzles. While we write for our names, I found the name Terry Tooth. I really told Russia very much, Terry Tooth, what kind of name is his? And then I heard that my voice is a voice. Stop, Terry Tooth. This was the most disgusting life.

In Sindhi, today I climbed and set a pool. When we names the names for our names, I saw the name Tory Toth. I really told Root, what is the triangle? What kind of name? And then I have heard that he is in a loud voice. Terry Towne was standing there. This was the most shameful moment of my life.

Crikey. That was a bit of your stand-up material from around 2017.

Yeah.

Using a diary extract when you were about 11. And then as I understand it, you Google translated it into the languages mentioned and then you Googled that language back into English and that’s what the result was, is that right?

Yes. So actually it’s probably from 2007 rather than 2017.

Oh, right, because I was going to say, I remember you as a stand-up from longer ago than 2017.

Yeah, and I’m actually thinking that I, I remember maybe I did try that out in 2017. I think that idea has been floating around for a while. So it might be that I tried it a couple of times and then it didn’t work on stage actually. But I think I’ve had the diary extracts. I sort of go through them reasonably regularly and go, is there anything I can use for this Edinburgh show? And we used to go on these Christian holiday camps. That’s where this came from with my friend Ruth. And they were sort of amazing actually. So we’d go and camp and sing and have a service in a marquee in the mornings. And I loved it because I was so interested in boys from such a young age. And there were always really, really hot Christian boys there from different towns. And then you could, you went to this hut and you signed up to do loads of things that I loved, like rock climbing and pond dipping and things like that.

So this was something you tried at Stand Up but didn’t do. So when did you actually start doing Stand Up? Because you went to drama school. I know you went to drama school.

Yeah, I went to Guildford School of Acting, graduated in 2000. And at that point I was performing comedy songs, which I’d written on guitar.

You did that while you were still at drama school?

Yes. So I started writing songs when I was about 11 or 12, but they were always very serious and fair. I mean, like the poetry, kind of very angsty and nothing is real and things like that.

What, when you were 11 or 12, that’s the sort of thing you were worried about?

Yes. Well, not perhaps 11 or 12, but definitely at 13 or 14, I think I was quite early to get seized with that kind of adolescent type angst. 11 or 12, I used to write straight love songs. I used to be commissioned to write love songs. It’s again, this is very enterprising, isn’t it? It’s like charging my parents to watch the plays. I used to be commissioned to write love songs.

By whom?

By my friends and I started this service called Isy and Joe’s Dating Agency with my best friend, Joe, and girls would come to us and say, I fancy this guy, he’s got brown hair, he’s got blue eyes, and he likes Port Vale football team. And then I’d write a song only using three chords, because I’d hardly been playing the guitar for very long, about this boy. And then we’d somehow get him a cassette tape recording of the song or perform it to him in an attempt to make him go out with the girls. So I was a kind of, yeah, as a-

A yenta and also a musical yenta.

Yes, but unfortunately we were 100% unsuccessful.

It doesn’t surprise me really, I mean, boys at that age anyway are not getting to be that interested in girls or music, but the idea of being performed to in front of other people.

I know.

And yet you did it once, it didn’t work, and you continue to do it and make money.

I continue to do it. I don’t know if I made money. I think I made things like lip balm and erasers, you know, those smelly-

Like being in prison.

Yes, exactly, yes.

Fantastic.

So that’s what I did at the beginning. And then-

Graduated to-

Graduated into kind of writing for a serious period. And then when I was about 18 or 19, I was still writing love songs throughout this, or songs about relationships. And then when I was at college in my first year, there was a songwriting competition, and I’d written this song called A Million Faces about the perfect guy, and things like he doesn’t like Star Wars and stuff. It was like my version of the perfect guy. And I was living with a French guy called Laurent. And I think I performed it to him the night before the competition, and he said, it sort of needs something else. And I said, shall I just do it in a foreign accent? And I’m so bad at a lot of accents that the only foreign accent I could do is foreign, which is a kind of cross between French and Russian, I suppose. So he tried to get me to do it in a French accent. I couldn’t really copy him. So I did this song that I suppose had amusing lines in it, but was not written as a comedy song in this odd accent. And the audience found it funny. And that was the first time that I performed something that I’d written and an audience had laughed. And it was just the best feeling. And it kind of happened by accident. And then when I graduated, I had a few, then I started to write with a mind, you know, wanting to make the audience laugh. And then, but it was still a couple of years before I did comedy clubs and did. So it was 2002, I started doing sorts of comedy clubs, yeah.

When you started doing comedy clubs, was that a means to an end to be more recognised as an actor, because obviously that’s what you trained as, or was the standup itself the end that you were trying to achieve?

I never really thought that far ahead. I think I did really love doing, so I didn’t do the songs at first. Oddly, what would happen is I did the gay circuit for two years, from 2000 to 2002. I’m straight, but I had a lot of gay friends and we used to go and watch these gay nights and they were such a laugh. And I just fell into performing at those. And then I thought, I’m going to try and do the gong show at the comedy store, I’m going to do, I’m going to look in time out and go and do one of the pubs, you know, Rooms Above a Pub. And when I did that, I didn’t do the songs for a couple of years because I was kind of, I don’t know why, I thought I’ve got to learn how to be a standup, I can’t just do these songs because I wouldn’t speak between the songs. And when I did the gay clubs, I’d do the songs and they’d often go well, they sometimes wouldn’t, but they often did, which was great. But then between the songs, I’d just look at the floor, I wouldn’t say anything, I’d just go on to the next song. So I think it was probably quite good in a way that for about a year, I didn’t do, no one knew that I played the guitar and no one knew, of course you’re doing those Ape and Mike nights, there’s sometimes no one turns up to watch whatever. And then after about a year, I did songs and everyone was like, oh, this is what you should have been doing all along. I was like, oh, I’ve been doing this since I was 12. But I just, yeah, but was it? No, I didn’t think, it didn’t feel like it was a means to an end, but at the same time, I was a drama school graduate with, you know, was really struggling for money and wondering if I was gonna be doing theatre and education when I was 40. And so I was not blind to the fact that-

It was easier than getting a proper job.

It was easier than getting a proper job. It was far more enjoyable. It was still performing and I felt really in control. I could go and gig. I wasn’t making any money from it at first, but it was a lot of fun. I just got addicted to it really. But I hoped that in the end, everything would come together and I would get more acting work. And luckily that is what happened. I would get more writing work. But it took a good few years.

Yes, overnight success over seven years. Yes, exactly. Right, moving on. We’ve got another off cut now. Can you tell us what it’s called and what it is please?

Yes, I’d actually forgotten about this until you contacted me to do this podcast. It will be very interesting to hear it again. And I think out of anything, it will probably feel the most juvenile in terms of the writing if we discount the angsty poems. So this is called The Function Room and it’s a pilot written in around 2008 based on my Edinburgh show of 2007, Love Lost in the British Retail Industry.

Interior, ladies’ toilet cubicle. Louise, Kate and Ruth are all crammed into one cubicle. Louise and Kate are applying lipstick on each other over the head of Ruth, who is reading a science book. Louise is wearing a lilt ring pull on her engagement finger.

Girls, I am so excited. I can’t believe he’s going to give me the proper ring tonight.

And I can’t believe you’ve been doing it for six months wearing a ring pull. You put a lot of trust in that lad.

You live in the Stone Ages, you do. There’s plenty of girls who do it without even the ring pull. Louise is classy.

I’ve done it more in one night than you have in your entire life.

Which one night?

Last night.

But you went to women only yoga last night.

Exactly.

It’s not my fault I was born with a brain that likes to probe the universe before it probes a man.

That explains it all if you’ve been trying to probe the man, alien girl. You might get some action tonight though, Nick’s here.

No man’s doing any probing until I’ve learnt the whole periodic table backwards.

By the time you’ve done that, there’ll only be one man left on earth.

Yeah, Stephen Hawking.

Louise licks the ring pool.

I’m getting a bit sick of this totally tropical taste.

That’s not what you’ll be saying later.

Do you start to like the taste after a while?

She means summit between the sheets.

Or between Argos and the leisure centre.

Oi!

That’s more like you and Kirkby, that is.

Interior, urinals, cut to Tom, Nick and Kirkby, standing at the urinals. Kirkby is slowly and ceremoniously downing a pint whilst weeing.

Congratulations and all that, mate. Better not lose the bloody ring or get a riot roasting. Look at that, Kirkby. Under the thumb already. You’ll be under the thumb if you’re not careful. No! Took me mum ages to do me hair. Maybe she’s hoping you’ll finally get your end away. I have done it, actually. I just never felt the need to tell you. Five years ago, Scout Camp, Sheffield. I awayed my end in a field of sheep. Ha ha! Yeah, the ones who couldn’t run fast enough. As if you’re not a chuffing virgin, you chuffing virgin. Reckon Ruth might be up for it tonight, though, if your mum hasn’t superglued your pants on.

Interior, ladies’ toilet cubicle. Cut back to Louise, Kate and Ruth, still all crammed into the cubicle. Louise looks very dreamy.

Aw, you two are so right for each other. You even piss at the same time.

Kate knocks on wall of cubicle, which connects to urinals.

Oi, Tom, don’t go for number two.

You’re brave, a love spell.

So which part were you gonna be? Were you gonna be Ruth?

Honestly, this is what this podcast is for, isn’t it? I mean, my God, I cannot believe I wrote that. I think it’s so interesting to listen to now. Yeah, which part would I be? I mean, the geek.

Ruth.

They’re all such archetypes. Yeah, it would have had to have been Ruth.

When we were studying the periodic table.

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s really, really necessary to pull this apart as an example of me feeling this pressure to be a writer and not knowing my voice at all. Because when I hear that, it’s just a mess. It doesn’t feel like anything. I mean, thankfully, it doesn’t feel like anything that would ever be commissioned. It’s really derivative. It’s a really base. The jokes, if you can even call them jokes, are bad. It’s coarse in a way that I wouldn’t find funny or right now. I think what happened was I’d done my Edinburgh show, which wasn’t like that. It had pathos. And I think one of the things that is so terrible about that script is the fact that you don’t feel that any of them got any personality. It’s like you’ve got the geeky one who just has got her nose in a science book. Well, that would never happen in a nightclub toilet. That’s true. So what is it tonally? What’s happening? Someone’s wearing a ring pull on their finger. Well, actually, I don’t think a ring pull would really hurt. You couldn’t wear it on your finger for six months.

And also it wouldn’t taste of totally tropical taste after a while. It would go rather rancid pretty quickly.

Absolutely. So what’s happening? Is it slightly surreal? And if so, why is it so almost trying to be a bit like two pipes of log and a packet of crisps? But that had real characters in it who had real needs. And yeah, I just I think it’s brilliant to listen to now because it makes me feel that I have moved on from that. And I think what happened was I did my Edinburgh show.

Which was about this subject, was it?

It was about two people who worked in a supermarket who fell in love and were very shy with each other. And yeah, they were both from a small town, and I suppose didn’t have great lofty ambitions, but had a lot of vulnerability and nearly missed each other in terms of getting together because they weren’t honest about how they felt. And then this, for this to have come off the back of it, it’s like I sort of lost all confidence in the voice that I was in the process of finding still in 2007.

Well, you tried to fit what you believed people wanted to read or commission, I imagine. I think there’s certainly a very interesting clip. I mean, not everything we hear is likely to be brilliant because that’s why they were in the office.

No, that’s the point of this, isn’t it? Otherwise it would do it. And I think I’m glad I put it in because it’s so dire.

It’s not that bad. You’re being very harsh, I think. We’ve had a lot worse than that on the show. I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets here, much, much worse than that. That was quite entertaining. I believe the actors quite enjoyed doing it. That’s good.

But I think this is one that I would consign, keep in the off-cut draw.

Okay, well, we’ll move swiftly on then. No more need to be said about that. Yes, can you give us the information on your next off-cut, please?

Yes, these are various programme ideas from between 2013 and 2017.

Clonk, Welsh for to chat, a radio idea. Her partner’s first language is Welsh. Her baby is growing up bilingual, so Isy, who failed A-level French, has decided to learn Welsh. In this show, she explores the obscure pockets of other Welsh learners in England, attempts to take her daughter to a London Welsh-speaking playgroup, and travels across the border to meet Welsh-speaking musicians and artists, all culminating in her performing five minutes of stand-up in Welsh in front of a completely Welsh-speaking audience.

Mole-man, Radio 4 proposal. Recently, a couple of British contemporary artists, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, purchased the house of William Little, Mole-man of Hackney, an eccentric millionaire who used his time and a myriad of equipment to dig a maze of 20-metre tunnels beneath said property until his airless death in 2010. Over 20 years, Little caused £400,000 worth of damage and created multiple theories as to why. In total, 33 tonnes of debris, including three cars and a boat, were removed from the house. Comedian Isy Suttie, who used to live on the next street, talks to new buyers Tim and Sue about their plans to convert the currently unsafe building into a home whilst preserving the tunnels. Isy seeks to unearth, pun intended, the myth and magic surrounding the inimitable Little while asking if the council are right to try and erase the tunnels forever, or if art has a responsibility to treasure the whims of our willful eccentrics. Lucky Charm, Proposal Lucky Charm is a series of six 15-minute radio programmes put together and presented by Isy Suttie on the subject of Lucky Charms and the impact they’ve had on different people. Each week, Isy talks to a couple of different members of the public who have a special relationship with Lucky Charms, whether they hold one dear to their hearts or don’t believe in them because of a bad experience with one. With a sit down drinking a cuppa feel, Isy and the guests unearth stories related to the Lucky Charm which might bring back joy, pain or hope. At the end of each segment, Isy sings a short song she’s composed in relation to the story she’s heard and asks her guests to join in as much as they feel comfortable. Each show has a loose theme, like superstition or travel, and is tied up at the end with Isy drawing conclusions from what she’s heard.

Is one of the conclusions that lots of people don’t like joining in with songs by any chance?

I think if this had gone to series then yes, that conclusion would very much have been drawn week after week.

It’s such a sweet idea, then just going to have a little song thing on the end, and the image of you sitting there going, join in everybody.

No, you’re right, yes.

Well, clonk, is that how you pronounce it? Is that right? The Welsh thing?

Yes, yes.

That was from 2013. Now, you apparently, according to the great Wikipedia, did appear in a Welsh learners programme, HUB? Yes, HUB, yes. So, was that connected at all? The HUB, what have you just said, sorry, and clonk.

Yeah, and clonk. Only in the sense that when I met Ellis, I started learning Welsh. And Welsh is quite a big part of my life. We don’t speak it to the kids as much as we should and would like to, but they do speak some Welsh, and we do speak a kind of pigeon Welsh in the house. So, I think I was thinking of programme ideas, and yeah, I kind of wanted to involve Welsh, the Welsh language and Wales and Welsh speaking Wales in something. I feel like it’s a little bit vague.

It looks very much like a first draft because it doesn’t go into specifics.

It does. It’s like, why? That’s what you’ve always got to think, isn’t it? It looks like it could be quite a nice half hour, but it’s got to have something propelling it forwards. Would I be trying to find out if I could become fluent in X amount of time or would I?

Yeah, reality TV type challenge.

Yes, exactly.

By the end of the programme, will she be able to convince these people who otherwise would not fall for it that she is the thing she’s pretending to be? Yes, exactly. So that never got submitted anywhere, I’m guessing just by the length of it, because it didn’t look like it had been written out properly.

No, I don’t think it did. So I would have sent it to a producer and they would have said, possibly no, or we’re not submitting it, or do a draft to it, and then I never did.

Whatever no is in Welsh.

Yes, exactly, which is no.

Oh, is it? How disappointing.

Well, yes, I think it’s just a bit, it kind of, to me, stinks of going, oh, I’ve been to these Welsh classes at City Lit. Is there any way I could claim it back on my tax?

Oh, gosh, again, you’re a million chumps ahead. Because I wouldn’t have gone for, is there any way I could pay off my taxes? Genius, that’s brilliant. I was just thinking from the things that we have just listened to, you’re clearly somebody who goes, oh, this opportunity has occurred to me. I can turn that into a TV series or a radio series or whatever. The fact that you lived near where the Mole-man lived and you hear the information, can I make it into something? It’s very impressive that you are able to spot opportunities when they occur. I hadn’t thought of the financial opportunities. That’s even better.

It would only be a bonus. I wouldn’t be doing it just to…

But just the fact that you got panned.

And plus, if I’ve got my city lit receipts.

Oh, jeez, I see you’re cleverer than I even thought you were. Because obviously the Mole-man, you lived nearby. I imagine that’s why it occurred to you. Although there is a 15-minute documentary on YouTube now. I think it was only posted last year.

Oh, is there? I must watch that.

Yes, it’s only 15 minutes. It’s quite a sweet little documentary. But you got there first. So how do you have submitted it?

You could have got your tax back on the other things, not him. On my travel to the Mole-man’s house. We were really obsessed with this house. I used to live a few roads away. We used to go and join hands outside it and call his name. Who’s we? Me and my best friend from home, Caroline, our housemates and her boyfriend. We were in our late 20s. It sounds like we were about 16. I’ve always been a bit obsessed with Ouija boards and seances and things like that and always wanted to write about it in some way, not quite managed to yet. But we used to go outside and kind of, we were very intrigued by this guy and we thought there was a kind of spooky element to it and who was he and why had he done this? And I love stories like this. I absolutely love, especially rich people who get locked away.

Who don’t have to pay as much tax as everyone else.

Yes, exactly. They’re not trying to claim that they’re city-lit classes. They don’t care. They can write them off.

So while you and your friends were standing outside doing the weird, holding handsy stuff, this poor man in his house had these weird late 20 year old women outside behaving strangely.

Yeah, he died in 2010 and I lived there before that. And you could see from the outside, it was amazing. There was a sort of car in the garden on its side and just so much stuff in the garden all leaning against the house, I suppose, propping it up because it caused so much annoyance to the neighbors because I think it affected the electrics and the water because he dug under the foundations and gone. I mean, yeah.

Sorry, at my age, I’m sympathizing with the neighbors. I’m sorry. The property prices.

I think now I’m a bit older. Now I’m a homeowner. I wasn’t there. It was all a bit of a joke. We’d all join hands outside and now I’m like, oh, gosh, you know.

Call the council, get this sorted out.

Yes, exactly.

So that didn’t come of anything and nor did your lucky charms, presumably.

No, no. And I was a bit gutted about Mole-man, actually, because I thought that was quite… But I think visiting it again, it feels a little bit like the is art more important than digging under a house thing? It feels a little bit tacked on. I think it was basically me looking for an opportunity to go in the house and see the tunnels. So I think again, I’ve kind of used my desire because I’ve got to think about abandoned houses as well. I just love going in derelict houses. And again, as I get older, I’m now more nervous of things like asbestos, but in my younger days, I would just go in and kind of. So I think there’s a bit of me that was kind of going, I know this area, I’d love to go in there. Shall I pitch a radio documentary where we could get permission? I love it.

Always thinking ahead. Nothing is ever as it seems. There’s always an extra level with Isy Suttie. But 2013 was the clonk one, and you had two series of your radio show, Isy Suttie’s Love Letters, and your show, the Sony Gold winning, Pearl And Dave. So you must have been pretty busy.

Yes, I was actually. And I was also, I think that year, was that the year of the Olympics?

No, 2012 was the Olympics.

2012 was unbelievably busy. I did Peepshow and I did Shameless, and I lived in Manchester for months. And I remember feeling then, I’m actually doing too much. I’m in danger of, I’d have these periods would actually feel a bit faint. I think my body was kind of going, please, please don’t do this much. And then when I had kids, I just did kind of almost get burnout, because I carried on just, I think I am someone who was a bit of a workaholic before I had kids and actually having kids.

Well, when you have kids, of course, you have no sleep and then it’s almost impossible to continue a workaholic lifestyle.

Yeah, I think actually you’re, exactly. I think you just get stopped. Some people don’t, but I thankfully do.

Those who can afford care. Those that can carry on. Those of us that can’t afford care.

Exactly. Yeah, those people who get night nannies. It was really about someone who’s got a, with a newborn, had a night nanny that finished at six in the morning, then morning nanny, then a day nanny. I was like, must cost about 30 grand a week.

Yes, but what heaven that would have been. Oh my goodness.

But I could have written all my proposals. My Mole-man drafts 723.

And the songs that would go at the end of Lucky Charms, which people may or may not sing along. Anyway, let’s get on to the last off-cut. Would you like to introduce that for us, please, Isy?

Yes, this is an outtake from my new novel, Jane Is Trying, which was written last year in 2020.

Our marriage is like a jumper, which you can wash at 60 degrees, asterisk without it shrinking. Our marriage is like autumn, when we dance under falling leaves. Our marriage is like Christmas, it gives and takes and gives. Our marriage is like a jewelry box, in which true happiness lives. When I first met you, Red Alice, and we danced to Sister Sledge, I couldn’t believe your kindness, as you fished me out of that hedge. Your knitting is exemplary, and so is your… Hand on my heart, I love you, and will untill… even after my dying day. But that was what they wanted, wasn’t it? These Etsy customers. If I was going to make any money at all, I had to cater for their needs. It had been Megan’s idea, and she’d even set up my page for me. The plan was that soon I’d be able to whip up these poems in half an hour, working off a generic one I used as a template. Was it OK for a silver wedding anniversary poem to have an asterisk? I was most pleased with the last line, which could be changed depending on whether or not they believed in an afterlife. Bill was my first customer, and he’d requested the poem for his wedding anniversary, but hadn’t given me very many facts about his wife Alice. A long anecdote about him drunkenly falling into a bush the night they met at a nightclub I’d shed good light on, I thought. He called her Red Alice because of her hair, and they loved Sister Sledge. She was nice and kind, and loved knitting and cooking. What an epitaph. I looked up at Stuart. It was raining sheets outside, so relentlessly that it was like everyone in the bookshop was hiding, suffocating our time away in a hollowed out husk behind a waterfall. An old woman had been looking at the same origami book for 20 minutes, smiling and nodding to herself as she looked at the pictures as if recognising a bunch of old friends. Can you think of a generic food dish that rhymes with day? I said to Stuart next to me, my eyes still on my notepad. Special K, he replied. Your knitting is exemplary and so is your special K. Hand on my heart, I love you and will until forward slash even after my dying day. Hi Bill, I typed on the bookshop computer. Nearly finished the poem, it’s going well. Two questions, are you religious and does Alice by any chance make cereal well? Put exactly the right amount of milk on etc. Get back to me soonest Jane. A reply pinged back from Bill. Don’t like cereal much, sorry. More of a toaster marmalade man.

Another very lovely clip, I thought. I suppose it was cut out because there’s too many other lovelinesses in it. Too much loveliness. We haven’t got space for all this loveliness.

Actually, I was thinking the first draft which that was in was 88,000 words and then the second one was 71,000. So I cut 17,000 words.

Do you do your cutting or do editors come in and go?

My editor advised me and I thought she was great. She did exactly the right amount of when she felt strongly about something, it was obvious which bits she didn’t mind so much about. And then I think sometimes you need a bit of gentle nudging to see the wood for the trees. But I always agreed with her, thankfully. So I think it must be a bit tricky if you come to loggerheads. But I really loved my editor. And we both felt basically the main character Jane, who you just heard is struggling for money. And she works for an ad agency writing copy. So she’s trying to think of a get rich quick scheme, really. And the reason this was caught, I quite liked this bit. And I thought there were some funny lines in it, but it just didn’t really go anywhere. There was this bit. And then I’d find that in later scenes, I was sort of remembering, oh, she’s supposed to be doing the Etsy poems. So then I’d sort of tack on a bit where she’d be staying at her friend’s house, kind of going, oh, I need to go and write my Etsy poem about a newborn baby. And it just in the end felt like this isn’t necessary. I can show that she’s worried about money without her doing this. But I do like the idea of someone, my partner and I, and some of my friends are, I’m obsessed with those sort of terrible signs you get saying like, live, laugh, love, or it’s Prosecco o’clock. And I even ordered my friends, Anne and Zoe, to magnets from Etsy that were personalised saying, Anne, you got this, and Zoe, you got this. Because we sort of, we always say, you got this to each other and this one got it. So cheesy to us, it doesn’t mean anything. To other people it does, of course, but to me, I don’t like those kind of generic kind of, hey, everyone’s here.

And people actually paint them on the walls of their houses. They don’t just hang them, you go into other people’s houses and they’re actually painted onto the walls.

That’s amazing. I mean, that’s the kind of thing I do to an ex-boyfriend who the equivalent of sewing prawns into someone’s curtains is writing, live, laugh, love on a wall, then drawing a curtain across it. It’s like, ha ha, you’ll find that. And also, if I look at an Airbnb, I really like looking at Airbnbs even if I don’t, even if I’m not really thinking, go on holiday, I sort of think, oh, look at Airbnbs in Folkestone. And if they’ve got anything like that, it’s an immediate, no pile. I hate it when an Airbnb will have a close up of taps or a close up of those signs. It’s just like, what are you doing? We need to see the room.

Or piles of towels.

Or white towel, who cares? But for me, there’s something in someone quite cynically writing these poems that contain similar sentiments to these messages that I find so repulsive. So I think there’s something quite funny about someone having a generic poem that they can just change a few lines and then go, here you go, that’s 20 quid.

But then it does actually mean something to someone. I used to, when I was in a singing group, we used to have to write songs at events. We’d do corporate events and we’d write a funny song and we’d include the name of the MD or whatever. And we’d put in some facts like, oh, you’re always getting off to play squash. And it’s not hilarious in any way, shape or form. But when people hear it, it means so much to them because it is specific to them.

Oh, absolutely, completely. And actually, those people who like those signs mean good. If it genuinely helps people, that’s great.

Yeah, if it inspires them.

I’m not casting judgment on them. I’m just saying for me. And also, I agree. I think the few times that I’ve done corporate gigs and I’ve always just died horribly at them, the only bits that have gone well is when I’ve either tweaked the lyrics to a song or perhaps just said a few jokes about the boss and kind of, as you say, it doesn’t even necessarily have to be that complicated, does it? Even if you say, oh, he used to live in Margate. They sort of be, yeah, but I suppose it’s about it being a performance and them being featured in it. And yeah, so no, absolutely.

They feel seen or heard of that horrible phrase. I feel seen, I feel heard. I feel seen.

Yeah, I feel seen in a good way.

Yeah, yeah.

So Jane Is Trying, your novel, is a novel, but it wasn’t your first book. The first book you wrote was a memoir, wasn’t it? It was called The Actual One. Was it a true book? Was it true?

It is a true book, but I actually preferred writing the novel because I, something about writing things down. So it’s about a lot about relationships I’ve had and kind of, you know, disastrous dates and things like that. And what I found was that I was very worried about people. I knew reading it and recognising themselves. And so I would change names and then, you know, you have to sort of think, gosh, should I put that bit in? And I really yearned to be able to be, to put everything in that I wanted to put in. I couldn’t really, I think maybe someone else would have done, but I just would have worried about it too much. So when it came to write the novel Jane Is Trying, the recent book, in some ways it was harder because there were no constraints. But once I got going, it was a very freeing feeling to be able to put in real people and it not be a problem because you either change their gender or you amalgamate them with someone else or you kind of go, I’ve taken that bit from mum and I’ve taken that. And you know, hopefully they’ll never know, although the mum in it is reasonably similar to my mum, so I’ve told her not to read it, but also it’s got quite a lot of sex in it. She gets very nervous though in that way that, you know, if you go and see someone you know perform and you just think, oh, please let this be good, because that awful feeling where you meet them afterwards in the bar and you don’t want to say, how did you learn all those lines type thing? I don’t know what the equivalent is with how did you write all those words, you know, if you don’t like it or trying to make…

How did you spell them all?

Yes, exactly. Gosh, it must have been so hard. Did your arms get tired when you were typing?

Let’s watch out for those comments.

You know that they didn’t like the book much. Or even like, how does it get typeset? Did you get to go to the factory?

What font did you use? I’ve never even thought about that because I have not enough of my friends have written books that, well, they’ve written books, but even if they had, if they’ve written books that I didn’t like, I’ve never had to think…

Well, but the good thing about books is you don’t get… With performances, it’s a definite event, isn’t it? And then you see them afterwards and you’re there. And even with someone’s on telly or on radio, they’re sort of going to go, it’s on at this time, you know. Whereas with a book, you can always say, sorry, I haven’t been able to read it yet. And that’s the weird thing about it coming out is, well, I remember this from publication day with the actual one. You sort of build up to this publication day and then nothing happens. And, you know, you just sort of go, oh, it’s a bit like having a birthday when no one turns up. Because obviously, if anyone’s pre-ordered it, that’s the day they’ve received it, unless they’re going to read it in about six hours. And then it’s… So, yes, it’s a bit of an odd feeling, really.

Although, presumably now you’ve got enough sort of celebrity chums who can read advance copies of Jane Is Trying and then give you a nice review and stuff. And you could stagger that, couldn’t you?

Yeah, I have had some nice quotes, which has really helped, actually. Yes, and I’ve only paid them all. A hundred million pounds! That’s why I need to claim back all my…

Yes, exactly. It’s tax-deductible. Right, then we have come to the end of the show. How was it for you, Isy Suttie?

I really, really enjoyed it. It’s been brilliant.

Thank you for sharing the contents of your off-cut straw with us. The Offcut Straw was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Isy Suttie. The offcuts were performed by Beth Chalmers, Emma Clarke, Toby Longworth, Lynsey Murrell, Darrell Maclaine and Shash Hira, and the music was by me. If you’d like to support the series, please visit offcutstraw.com and subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.