JACKIE CLUNE

From time to time, people ask me, oh, when are you going to do Karen Carpenter again? Normally older, gay gentlemen, who were my sort of main clientele back in the day.

Audience, not clientele, I think.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah. So yeah, I think maybe I will finish it. I mean, it’s awful when you laugh at your own jokes, but that did make me chuckle at the end.

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 paved the way to subsequent success.

My guest this week is Jackie Clune. On her Twitter profile, she describes herself as actress, writer, activist, mum of four, including triplets, vice president of equity, and vice president of Eaton Manor Rugby Football Club. Having started her working life as a university drama lecturer, she created a one-woman show about the singer Karen Carpenter, which was a hit at the 1995 Edinburgh Festival, and her career as a writer-performer took off. She’s written another six Edinburgh shows, material for TV sketch programs, Smack the Pony and BBC’s Comedy Nation, and countless articles for news outlets such as The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Red, and Top Sante, where she has a regular column. She’s been a stand-up comedian, and as an actress has worked extensively in high-profile, critically acclaimed theatre productions in both drama and musicals, which include Mamma Mia, 9 To 5, and Candide. And on TV, you may recognize her from performances in shows such as Eastenders, or comedies like Borderline, Motherland, and Mandy. And she’s also an author. She’s written two books, Extreme Motherhood and Man of the Month Club, and her third book, the novel, I’m Just a Teenage Punchbag, has just been published this year. Jackie Clune, I’ll take a breath now. Welcome to the off-cut draw.

I sound like a bit of a git, don’t I?

You sound like a very busy person. And I haven’t even mentioned half the stuff on your CV.

Yes, I like to keep busy. I’ve always liked to keep busy. I’m not very good at holidays. I’m not very good at sitting still. But it’s quite a new thing for me to talk about myself as a writer. And weirdly, a lot of the stuff I sent you is all from the same sort of two-year period, not that long ago, because I think it was only really then that I thought, yeah, I am a writer and I do love that aspect of what I do. I think most women my age, if you’re still knocking about the theatre and entertainment industry, you’ve got to start making your own work because there are no roles for us. So, I do embrace that side of what I do now a lot more.

Are you a planner, because you do have quite an extraordinary body of work with the acting and the musicals and the performance. How easy is it for you to make a decision to sit down and commit to writing a full-length project, like a play or a book, when you’ve got all these other things going on?

I have to make it a discipline. I’m very sort of workaday about it. There’s no muse that strikes in the middle of the night when I get up and have some lordnum and write a wonderful poem or something. I make sure that once the kids are at school, I’ve got a shed in my garden, and I go down the garden, which takes about four steps, into the shed, and I write a thousand words, and I’m not allowed out until I’ve done it. And that is the only way I finish anything, because otherwise I just, I’m here, there and everywhere, and I think that’s really liberated me as a writer, when I’ve heard other people describe it as a job. And the inspiration, the enjoyable part of it, is probably about five percent, and the other 95 percent is just work. And initially, I thought that meant I was rubbish, and that I shouldn’t write because I never had that kind of burning need. You know, maybe the burning need is there, sublimated somewhere, but most of it is just dedication and bloody mindedness.

Well, let’s get started with your first off-cut. Can you tell us please what it’s called, what genre it was written for, and when it was written?

Yes. So this is a young adult fiction book called Queen of the Mall, which was never published or has not been published yet, and I wrote it in 2016.

Right, girls, point shoes, please. Lucy, you can do some more stretching. Paula doesn’t know what to do with me because I refuse to do the torture shoes. But it’s what the big girls do, Mum cried when I bare-faced rejected them. Oh, great, every teenage girl’s right to have bleeding stumps for feet, Mum. Why don’t you go the whole hog and cut my toes off? So when the other girls are trying to stand on their toes, the hard wooden blocks strapped to their feet with pretty pink satin ribbon, I am, once again, lying on the floor trying to reach my toes over the top of my belly. I stare at the little rolls of blubber encased in the baby pink cotton leotard. This is so humiliating. I am not ballet. I was not built for ballet. I do not like pretending to be wafty. I am not wafty. I have no desire to be wafty. Even when I tried, once, Paula laughed and said something about a baby elephant. Now it’s time for jetties. Oh, God. We huddle in the corner waiting for our turn to step jump across the floor in a diagonal line. I try to hide, but Paula always singles me out. I stare at the spindly, awkward girls desperately trying to land lightly, keep their heads up, hold their non-existent bellies in. They all look like Bambi on ice, twiggy legs flying all over the place, big scared eyes, hoof feet crashing down on the wooden floor. All too soon it’s my turn. I step third a couple of steps and just when I reach the middle, I hear a terrible ripping sound. The whole room stops. There’s a dreadful moment when I try to work out without looking at or touching my bum, if it’s my tights, not too bad, or my leotard that is split. End of life. I don’t have to tell you that it’s my leotard AND my tights, do I? I don’t have to tell you that a dozen 13 year old girls can now see my bum crack because we’re not allowed to wear knickers under our leotards. I also don’t have to tell you, I’m sure, that the same 13 year old girls are now helpless with laughter, clutching at each other and falling all over the floor. I don’t blame them. Anything to lighten the atmosphere in that prison. I cover my bum with my hands and shuffle to the corner. I grab my sweatshirt and tie it around my waist. Somebody needs a bigger leotard, says Paula, and the girls double up again. Something inside me cracks. I get up, walk to the door. No toilet breaks until half past, Lucy, yells Paula, the ballet Nazi. I’m not going to the toilet, I say. What’s wrong, says Mum as I push past her at the door. I quit, I say over my shoulder as I walk towards the exit. I notice some of the horrible Nazi ballet mums smirking as I storm past them. I accidentally kick one of them in the shin. Ouch, she says angrily. Lucy, come back, shouts Mum. I make it out into the car park. The prisoners, still in the class, have all rushed to the window. They are staring silently out at me as if to say, it’s too late for us, save yourself. I raise my hand in salute and head to the car.

So, Queen of the Mall, Mall spelt M-A-U-L. Mall as in you’re being mauled by somebody. Is that what that spelling means?

Well, it actually is a rugby term. Some years ago when my kids were quite small, they started playing rugby and up until the age of 11, girls can play with boys. And then once they hit 12, they have to separate into single sex teams. And there was no girls team at the club for Eaton Manor that I’m one of the vice presidents of now. So me and a friend Caroline started a girls team and I’ve just taken it on from there. And it’s become one of my biggest passions. And I always say to people, you know, I’ve sung at the Albert Hall and I’ve done films and telly and whatever and glamorous showbiz life, you know, now and again. Most of it’s not like that. But the thing that gives me the biggest buzz, the thing that really excites me is watching my girls teams playing rugby. I grew up with it because my dad was a rugby referee in Harlow, an Irish family, and rugby was big in our house. But I always hated it because it was cold, wet afternoons, waiting for it to finish. It’s a game that has a lot of stop starts. So there are an awful lot of long girls where nothing much happens. And I didn’t really get it at the time. But having watched my kids learn the game and seen how empowering it is for girls, especially, to do all of the things that we’re told never to do, like be loud, be aggressive, knock people over, enjoy your physicality, enjoy your strength. If you get knocked down, get up and start again. Don’t give up. Be there for each other. You know, all these wonderful sort of metaphors for life seems to me a really sort of feminist sport. And I just am really, really passionate about it. So I wanted to write a book for young women to try and counter a little bit of that narrative that you have to be a ballet girl, you know. So the heroine of this book, Queen of the Mall, is a girl who doesn’t fit that ballet mold and who doesn’t quite know where she fits in. And in her discovery, a sort of accidental discovery of a girl’s rugby team, she finds her squad. And I really love it. When I wrote it, I thought, God, I’d love to have this published and give it to all the girls that I have met through the years at various festivals all over the country playing rugby. Because it’s a really interesting community with incredible characters. You know, you’ve got the pushy rugby mums and dads and the coaches who are kind of living vicariously through the girls. And then all the sort of normal arena of teen drama that goes on between girls. So, yeah, I’m still hopeful that maybe one day when Women and Girls Rugby has a higher profile that someone will pick it up and publish it. Because I think it’s a cracking story about finding your tribe.

Sounds like it’d make a good TV series for CBBC or something.

Well, yes. Thank you for saying that, Laura. I think so too.

So your childhood as you weren’t a rugby player, even though you grew up around it, were you quite a bookish, swatty type? Or were you more of a performer? Or did all that come later, performing and creative stuff?

I basically do anything as long as somebody applauds me. I’ve always said to people that I’ve made whatever talent I have go a long way. I’m kind of shameless. You know, there’s a character in Mike Lee’s Abigail’s Party. She called…

Beverly?

It’s not Beverly. It’s the very timid one.

Ah, yes, played by Janine Davidsky. I can’t remember.

That’s the one. I can’t remember the character’s name right now. Anyway, there’s a bit where she relates an anecdote where she says, somebody asked, could anyone play the piano at a party? So she sits down and plays by a broom, by a broom, over and over again. And I’ve always related to that because I will stick my hand up and say, yeah, I can do that, even though I probably can’t. But I sort of think that just saying yes and turning up is a really good start with anything. And I’ve really enjoyed pushing the little talents that I have. I mean, I went to normal comprehensive school in the 70s, and we weren’t bookish in my house. We really were that family that had the Bible, and that was it. Maybe the odd readers digest. My parents are both Irish, didn’t have any further education, came to the country after the war. And we weren’t academically ambitious. But then my sister, who’s a few years older than me, she was really clever, and she went to university. And I thought, oh, maybe that’s something I could do. That looks like a laugh. And then I discovered the Youth Theatre, and it was really through that, through sort of watching my sister read and think, well, maybe that’s something you can do in the world, and being involved in theatre, that I started to get more interested in the arts and literature. And yeah, it was just, we were sort of anomalies in our family, really. But I’m grateful that, you know, I got those opportunities to go to Harlow Youth Theatre and experience a little bit what it’s like to be given a voice in a community where you’re sort of told to sit down, shut up most of the time.

Right, time for another offcut now. Can you tell us about this one?

Yes, this is the start of a one woman show that I wrote in 2018 about a cruise ship singer who does a Karen Carpenter tribute act. Heaven knows where the inspiration for that one came from.

I am much too old and much too fat to be doing this shit. I said I’d give it up when I hit 32. That was almost 20 years ago.

Give or take a couple of stone.

But they like it. Look at them.

All gooey with nostalgia.

Swaying along. The ones that aren’t eating. Inappropriate. I hate doing these dinner gigs. It’s not so bad in the showroom, but when they make me do it at dinner, ugh! These songs are not meant to be accompanied by the clank of cutlery. She’ll be turning in her grave.

Oh, hang on.

First one asleep in her soup. What’s the average age on this ship? 78, 80? It’s gotta be. Seventies night tonight. India’s seventies more like. We had one drop dead yesterday. Went to get on the train at Flom and keeled over. Massive heart attack. We had to leave him there. Repatriation. His wife got back on.

Well, shame to waste the trip of a lifetime.

Oh, yeah, there she is in the share wig. Good for you, love. He’ll be waiting for you back in Blighty when we dock. No one will be waiting for me, dead or alive. Back to the flat and the count on us. None of the catering, just as well. I can whack on half a stone in a week on one of these gigs. Food is so good. Three meals a day, plus afternoon tea if you want it, and supper after the show. I had lasagna last night at 11. Fuck’s sake.

So I really like this. That was a really nice piece. So was this going to be a theatre show?

Yes, I think now and again when unemployment hits, I think I need to write myself another show. I used to do one-woman shows. I’ve done two one-woman plays that were written for me. And I’ve always wanted to do another one. And now and again, I think about reviving Karen Carpenter stuff, because I used to make a living basically tonguing my hair and wearing 70s dresses and singing Carpenter songs.

Was there a play element to it, a narrative element, or was it just you singing her songs?

Yeah, it was just a cabaret act, but I’ve always sort of felt fascinated by people like Jane McDonald. And a few years back, probably about seven or eight years ago now, I did sign up with a cruise ship agent, and I did a few cruises. And it was just absolutely brilliant. I absolutely loved it. And the first gig I did, I got on board the ship. I was flown to Barbados. I spent the night in Barbados. And then I got taken on to this ship, and we sailed for five days across to West Africa. And in that time, you just got passenger status, so you need just sort of swanning around on deck, drinking Bacardi and stuff. And it’s quite lonely, and it’s a weird lifestyle. And there are people that live on those cruise ships and just hop from contract to contract, and they’re quite bizarre people. But I just thought that that’s a great character, you know, a woman who’s past her prime, still banging out the Carpenters classics and, you know, trying to make the best of it. And I still may finish this because from time to time, people ask me, oh, when are you going to do Karen Carpenter again? Normally older gay gentlemen, who were my sort of main clientele back in the day.

Audience, not clientele, I think.

Yeah, sorry. So, yeah, I think maybe I will finish it. I mean, it’s awful when you laugh at your own jokes, but that did make me chuckle at the end.

I laughed at your own jokes as well. They were definitely good jokes. OK, let’s move on now and have your next off-cut. What’s this?

This is a sketch for ERA, which stands for the Equal Representation for Actresses. ERA 5050 was a big campaign, and I wrote it in 2017.

How did it go?

I fucking smashed it. Just waiting now. My agent says there are only about 600 actresses up for it, so, you know, fingers crossed.

Absolutely.

It would just mean so much.

It’s been a while since I did the telly.

Oh, and you were so good in that crime watch reconstruction.

Thanks, darling.

What’s the part?

Well, it’s a new drama about Cleopatra. It’s going to be huge.

Oh, yes, I read about that. Big Netflix thingy, isn’t it? Who’s playing Cleopatra again?

Eddie Redmayne.

Seriously?

Yeah.

That’s amazing. God, you’d be so lucky to get a role in that. What are we up for?

It’s a smallish role, but you know.

There is no such thing as a small role. Just small actors or something.

Exactly. So the director said it would be really heavily featured.

Which part is it, then? Is it good?

It’s really good. So hopefully I’ll be playing Hatchet-faced old Crone 3rd from the left.

Oh, I love Hatchet-faced old Crone 3rd from the left. I played her in that torse thing and that police drama. Oh, and that film set in Nazi Germany.

Yes, you were brilliant. You’re always brilliant as Hatchet-faced old Crone 3rd from the left. But let’s not forget your biggest triumph in the last few years.

Oh, stop it. You’ll make me blush.

Come on. You mustn’t hide your light under a bushel.

Stop being silly.

You were absolutely magnificent in that episode of Poldark where you played Hatchet-faced old Crone 2nd from the left.

Well, tell that to Bafta. Thank you, darling. Then what days? Yes, indeed. Oh, no news?

Not yet.

You’re probably still seeing people.

Yes, the queue was round the block when I arrived. Most people camped overnight.

Anyone interesting in the queue?

Mirren was in before me.

I bet she didn’t camp.

No way.

Dench, naturally.

She didn’t camp either, did she?

Blethin, Walters, Staunton.

Oh, God, good luck, darling. But I expect they were up for other parts, weren’t they?

Yes, they were up for Hatchetface the Crone Number One.

Dialogue?

Yes, I believe so.

She has two lines.

Two lines? Lucky bitch. I haven’t spoken on camera since 1992.

Well, I say dialogue. The first line was, Oooooooog.

What was the second? Why wasn’t I out for it? Hang on, darling. Hello, darling, it’s Harriet. Walter. Harriet Walter. Yes, hello. I was just wondering if you knew anything about a great role going in the Cleopatra Netflix thing. Yes, I know you are, darling. I don’t mean to bother you. Yes, it’s great about all those young Italians you represent. Super. Must be so busy. No, I’m not doubting your… OK, yes, please. I can do any time. I wouldn’t normally push it, darling, but she has lines. Two.

What did he say?

He’s going to see if he can get me in. He knows people. Oh, that’s good.

Yes, I’m fine. Yes, not too bad. It’s all fine.

Just bloody tell me. Yeah. Thanks.

Don’t tell me. They went younger.

I so enjoyed recording that, I can’t tell you.

We did it very well.

What a very excellent sketch, that is. And very, very heartfelt from all of us.

Yeah. This is another bugbear of mine. I started a Twitter campaign over the summer, actually, called Owe It, Older Women in Theatre, because you owe us it. It just strikes me as absurd that, you know, men can age and grow into all these fabulous parts, but women are just kind of consigned to the metaphorical green room, you know, over the age of about 45. And it’s not just that it’s unfair. It’s just really boring. It’s like, you know, all white casts or all male casts. It’s just boring, you know. There are so many more stories out there to tell, and so many different people with different perspectives. And really that’s what the arts should be about. I think that, you know, everyone’s got different stories to tell. Let’s hear them all. Let’s have a bit of diversity, a bit of, you know, interest. And it’s really sad that I know so many brilliant actresses who are, you know, late 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, scrabbling around for these kind of scraps from the table. And it just strikes me as really lame and disappointing. So I’m kind of always happy to beat the drum for older actresses because there’s so many brilliant ones around and too few parts.

And you wrote this for the name Harriet Walter was very much in evidence there, who is, she’s a real actress. You wrote this for her.

Yes, me and her. I wanted me and her to record it. I mean, there’s a brilliant sketch, like it’s a short film called Leading Lady Parts by my good friend Jessica Swale. And she wrote it as a response to Me Too and oh, the other American campaign, Menopause Brain. Oh, it’s the one about equality for women in the film industry.

The one that you dig, Gina Davis.

Yeah, what’s it called? Anyway, that one, she wrote it for that and it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s this awful panel of people auditioning women for this role. And I just thought, what a great idea. I know it’s kind of inward facing and industry facing, but I’m sure most punters would get it too.

Well, they’re audiences, so they will have noticed what they’re watching.

Yeah, and noticed that they’re not represented, noticed that there’s all these dramas where it’s all blokes and noticed that the only women on screen are generally sort of young and glamorous. So I asked Harriet if she would do it and she was like, yeah, because she’s hilarious. Like I’ve worked with her three times now on the all female Shakespeare trilogy. And she’s really, really funny, really good comedian and doesn’t get to do a lot of comedy. And I just thought the idea of people like Helen, this is like a dystopia, which is, you know, an extreme version of what’s happening now, where even the likes of Helen Mirren and Judy Dench are scrabbling around to play Hatchet-Faced Old Bag, Third from the Left. I just think, you know, we’re not that far off that really, are we? And when you ever talk to anyone in film development and you’ve got a female older woman in your script, they always have to go to this list, and there’s only about six or seven actresses on it, and you’ll need one of those names on the film to get the film funded. But the list is so small.

Right, time for another off-cut now. What have we got?

This is the opening scene of a play that I wrote in 2017 called As Much As Any Star.

250 miles above NASA, 1992. May Jemisin 1 dances into the space a la Alvin Ailey. Finally, May Jemisin 2 jumps up onto the tree.

Whoa! It’s OK.

It’s OK. It’s OK. Don’t look down. Just don’t look down. You got this.

Jemisin risks a look down.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. It’s so high. I’m so high up. I can’t do this. What was I thinking? What was I thinking? Breathe. Hailing frequencies open. Frequencies open. Keep your frequencies open, May. Just don’t open your eyes.

Jemisin 2 looks at the audience.

Hey, ironic, huh? An astronaut afraid of heights? You couldn’t write it. Well, thank you all for being here. I am the first African American woman in space. Actually, that’s not true. The first African American woman in space was Commander Nyota Uhura in 1966, but she was a fictional character in Star Trek, so I guess I’m taking this one. I loved her in Star Trek. Nichelle Nichols, the first African American woman on TV, not playing a maid. She wanted to leave to go to Broadway, but a fan of the show persuaded her to stay. Kind of hard to say no to Dr. Martin Luther King, I guess. It’s important, he said. You’re making history. And now so am I. Thankfully, Endeavor is a little more solid than USS Enterprise, and I don’t have to wear a short skirt. Oh, I can see Chicago. Look, I swear that’s where I grew up. Hi, Mama. Hi, Dad. Hi, Mrs. Wilson, who in fourth grade told me a black girl had no place up in the sky. Woohoo!

She loses her footing and starts floating again.

This is incredible. But I always knew I was going to be up here. I knew. When I was a little girl, I got a splinter stuck in my thumb, and it got infected. Huss came out of it. My mother told me to go look it up, and then I found out it has all these really cool things in it. I told my teacher and she said, Ma, you got to be a nurse. A nurse? I didn’t want to learn how to use band-aids. I wanted to learn about what it was oozing out of my thumb. Back then, I just said, Uh-huh, miss. Yes, miss. A nurse. I learned right then and there never to be limited by other people’s limited imagination.

So this was a play and as was noted in the stage directions, there are two characters, Jemisin 1 and Jemisin 2. Tell us about that.

Yeah, this was something that I wrote for a good friend of mine, Jade Anuka, and it started from the sort of silliest premise. I can’t remember why, but I was reading about Mae Jemisin, who was the first black woman in space, and she looked exactly like Jade Anuka. So I showed Jade the picture and she was like, oh my God, yeah, we really do look alike. So I said, I’m going to write you a one-woman play about her. So I started writing it and then quickly realized that it needed the younger voice too. But as you can probably tell from listening to that, it’s very much a first draft. I couldn’t find a way into it to make it not just sound like a Wikipedia entry, you know, that’s just like, and then I did this and then I did this. And that is a bit of a problem, I think, with monologues. So I was trying to introduce this other aspect of her, which she actually trained as a dancer. And I wanted this sort of interplay between the scientist and the dancer and how both the arts and the sciences can feed each other because they both involve kind of leaps of faith and imagination. So it was going to be this sort of extemporizing on that theme with some modern dance and some science. But I never quite found the way into it and then got distracted and started something else.

So you didn’t finish writing it?

No, and I suppose there was a sort of squeamishness about a white woman writing this story. I suppose I felt maybe this is not my story to tell, or if it is, maybe I haven’t got the best perspective to do it justice. So I’m very interested in allyship and trying to be a good ally to the black cause. And I think having worked with a lot of black actors over the years, I sort of can try to see from their perspective what things look like. And yeah, I think maybe I just thought maybe this is not my story to tell. I think there’s a good idea in there somewhere. I just couldn’t find it.

Right. I see. So it never got to the stage of you’d booked a theatre or you’d planned an Edinburgh with it or anything like that.

No, but it was performed once. Just that section. And it was performed in Phyllida Lloyd’s back garden for her 60th birthday in typical Phyllida Lloyd style. She threw this massive… Yeah, she’s a theatre and film director. She directed the all female Shakespeare trilogy. She also directed the original production of Mamma Mia and the first film, as well as the film Iron Lady about Margaret Thatcher. And she’s a good friend of mine now having worked with her a lot. And yeah, she threw this party and everyone she invited, writers, actors, singers, dancers, musicians, and we were all invited to contribute something. It was kind of a festival over a weekend and we all camped and it was really, really jolly. So Jade actually performed this monologue on top of a tree in Phyllida Lloyd’s back garden.

What did you perform?

I did some songs. I think I did Dancing Queen because I was in Mamma Mia on the international tour for about three years. So I did Dancing Queen and then she was just about to start work on the Tina Turner musical, which is now in the West End, and I did a Tina Turner number as well. I think I did Simply the Best or something like that because there was a band and everything. It was really, really cool.

What a fun party.

I know.

Sorry to interrupt, but if you’re enjoying the show, please do subscribe to The Offcuts Drawer, give us a five-star rating, leave a review, tell your friends about it. All that stuff’s really important for a podcast like this. And visit offcutsdraw.com for more details about the writers and actors, and to find out about future live shows. Thanks for your support. Now back to the interview. In 2003, you played writer Julie Burchill. In Tim Fountain’s play, Julie Burchill Is Away. And that is a piece of writing that’s based on a real live person who is still alive, very much like Mae Jemison is.

How did you find that?

Did you know Julie Burchill? Was it a challenge? Did you actually meet her, confer with her at all about it?

Yes, I didn’t know her, but I’d always been a huge fan of her writing. I was a lifelong Guardian reader on a Saturday, and she used to have the most outrageous column, which used to stink out the liberal values of that paper at the time every week. I found it really glorious and funny and irreverent, and I really related to her working class, made good trajectory. When we first came up with the idea to do a play about her, because Tim had previously written a one-man show about Quentin Crisp called Resident Alien. He wanted to do a similar treatment. It was kind of like a hagiography, really, because we were huge fans. But she’s obviously a problematic person for lots of people, and she has quite controversial views, shall we say, sometimes. So we had a bit of drama in there as well, and it was basically me sitting in my Brighton mansion, as she was doing at the time, just sort of opining about things and being really scurrilous and really hilarious. So we got to know her through the process of researching and writing the piece, when Tim wrote the piece, and she was just such brilliant fun. We’d be summoned down to Brighton, and we’d go out for these elaborate lunches that she always paid for with one of her two black American Express cards, and she would just order champagne for everyone, and it was like being in the presence of a real old school kind of grand dame. It was brilliant fun, and I remember that time very fondly, and I absolutely loved playing her because it was great to be a woman with so little regard for how she was perceived. It was really liberating.

I wish I’d seen that, and it did very well. It went to the West End and everything, didn’t it?

Yes, it did. Yeah, yeah. And then we took it up to Edinburgh, and then we took it to Brighton Festival too. It was really good fun.

Right, we’ve come to your final off-cut. Can you tell us about this one, please?

Yes. This is a sketch called Trump’s Women, and it was written to be performed on the night of Trump’s inauguration in 2016.

We love Trump! We love Trump! Donald, I love you! I love you!

You’re going to make America great again!

Build the wall! Burn the bitch! Build the wall!

Well, hey there. We heard there was a group of nasty women here who needed a little reeducation on why Donald Trump is the greatest man on God’s earth.

That’s right, darling.

He’s got spunk.

Sure as hell has, Mary Beth Lucille. He’d tell it like it is.

We need a strong man.

He’s strong!

We need a man who speaks his mind.

Whatever is in it.

No bull as bastards.

He doesn’t wear mom jeans.

He’s a man of the people.

Sure is. He’s anti-establishment.

God’s sake, he’s on Twitter.

Now, we know there are some British women here tonight.

God bless you with your funny accents and your funny little gray teeth.

And your funny little no-gun ways.

No guns.

And we know that y’all don’t get Erdonald. You think he’s anti-women.

You crazy bitches, he loves women. Else why would he be grabbing us by the hoo-har every goddamn second?

So we’d like to say to you, don’t believe all you hear over the pond. Think of Erdonald as like your British guy. What’s his name?

Hugh Grant?

No, the other one, Mary Beth Lucille. Sherlock Holmes. He’s fictional, Mary Beth Lucille.

Oh, the poor guy, that’s too bad.

No, the Brexit guy. Drinks beer, tells it like it is, speaks his mind.

Neil Garage.

Yeah, Neil Garage. Think of Trump as our Neil Garage.

There you go. Now, doesn’t that feel better already?

So anyways, we ain’t too good at expressing ourselves in highfalutin words and all.

Not like your liberal, inter, extraterrestrial, inter-processes.

So, we’re gonna give you our message in a good old fashioned song. Please feel free to join in if you know it.

God bless America!

And this was supposed to be performed on the night of Trump’s inauguration, but it wasn’t. What happened?

Well, I was in New York. We went over there to do our Don Moir production of Henry IV, the all-female Shakespeare. And we were performing at St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, which is an incredible theatre, just on the river, on the underside of Brooklyn Bridge. And I just absolutely loved New York and loved being there. But it was a very weird time because obviously we landed like about three weeks before Trump’s inauguration, and the play was going really well. And the theatre wanted us to put on a little, almost like a wake for Trump’s inauguration that night after the show. So we were invited to put a programme of songs and music and so on together. And I came up with this sketch, and I got my friend Karen Dunbar, who’s a brilliant Scottish comedian who was also in the play, to do it with me. And we were going to rehearse and everything, and then we gave it to the artistic director of the theatre, and they were like, we’re really sorry, but we just can’t find this funny yet. It’s like, they were just like, it’s not funny for us. They were just so heartbroken that they had Trump, that they just couldn’t stomach it. And I was like, yeah, I think I may have misjudged the tone a little bit, because of course in England, you know, we would, I think we’re just much more comfortable with satire. And for them, it was just too close to the bone, and they were too feeling things too earnestly.

I can imagine the artistic community in America must have been absolutely shell shocked when that happened. That was so far from what anybody expected, but particularly for those of a more liberal persuasion.

Yes. And, you know, I was just gobsmacked by watching American news while we were there and watching all these Trump’s women and thinking, what the hell? What are you seeing that I’m not seeing? Why do you love him? He’s a misogynist. He’s a sexual abuser. He’s allegedly, you know, he’s not a good guy. So what is it that you’re seeing that I’m not? And actually, the sketch ends with one of the women saying, because I went on one of the pussy marches or something, the all women marches where we wore these pink pussy hats. And we had to rush back to get there for the matinee in the afternoon. And we were really terrified we weren’t going to make it. But we did make it. And one of the things that the Trump’s women said on CNN that night was, Oh, well, at least you got some fat women out walking. That was their only response to the women’s march in New York and Washington. Wow. So yeah, that intrigues me. Women who support misogynists. What’s that about?

Yes.

And I couldn’t offer a really considered discussion of that, but I could just send them up in a really pantomime way. So that’s what I did.

Have you ever had to turn down jobs because of your political beliefs?

No, I don’t think so. I have gone to castings and talked myself out of the job in the room because I’ve interrogated the material so much that it’s sort of fallen apart. And that’s a bit of an issue, but I don’t mind that. Like I went in for a meeting about a very well-known play that was being revived. And I basically said, but you know, this female character is really two-dimensional. So are you like obviously planning to say something about that, to do something with it that shows that? And the look of horror on this director’s face when he was like, no, I just think that, you know, it’s of its time, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, oh, right, okay. And then I did my monologue and he had some things to say about it. And then I said, well, I can do it again if you want. And it was the only time in a meeting I’ve had a director put their hands up, hold their hands up, say, no, no, I’ve heard enough. And so I just sort of scuttled out thinking, don’t think that was a good fit. Don’t think there’d be anyone happy in that rehearsal room.

It’s probably for the best, as you say.

Yeah, definitely.

Right. Well, final question. Are there any offcuts that you’ve still got that you haven’t shared with us today?

Oh, yes, lots. My book that came out in July, I’m Just a Teenage Punchbag, it took me a long time to settle on what it was going to be because I kept starting novels that, after 3000 words, disappeared up their own fundaments and I couldn’t finish them. So I’ve probably got a few of those knocking about, but I couldn’t find them, which is probably for the best.

It’s a shame. I’d quite like to have seen some of those or listened to some of those.

I don’t know. And I’m almost finished the next novel now, which, who knows, may end up in a draw somewhere soon. And lots of sketches.

Do you have a contract for that novel?

I do, yes, I do.

So we probably will be seeing it then.

I hope so. I hope so. Next year.

Well, Jackie Clune has been an eye-opener and quite a blast. Thank you so much for sharing the contents of your offcuts drawer with us.

Thank you.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Jackie Clune. The offcuts were performed by Beth Chalmers, Lizzie Roper and Lynsey Murrell, and the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcutsdrawer.com, and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.