Losing, Loving & Living – Victoria Firth

Knowing when to stop

5th September 2022

In 2018 I made an autobiographical one woman show called ‘How to be amazingly happy!’. It looked at identity and reinvention through the lens of not having children. It’s personal, intimate and increasingly has enabled me to platform issues around childlessness.

But when you have a successful show how do you know when to stop doing it?

As a piece of theatre, ‘How to be amazingly happy!’ has done well – a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe, tour dates all around the country and still in demand. It’s been a great ‘bread and butter’ show, flexible to tour, manageable to self-produce and, when making new work has been frustrated by the pandemic, it’s been a valuable way for me to stay feeling like a performer and connecting with audiences. It makes a lot of sense to keep projects like this ‘in repertoire’ – but for how long? There are particular things to consider when the work is auto-biographical or trauma informed.

First, the material dates. Not necessarily in its relevance to the audience but to the experience of the artist. It’s a true life drama but only at that moment in time, and life moves on. Relationships change and loved ones come and go. Performance skills mean things can be compellingly recreated and shows can be re-written but there’s a heartfelt balance in maintaining the integrity of the narrative alongside being oneself on stage when big things you’re talking about have changed. I experimented with replacing a monologue about a relationship, included to represent new beginnings when it actually ended very badly, but it just wasn’t as good. I spent a whole day of rehearsal angsting whether to change the word ‘is’ to ‘was’ in a sentence about my mum after she died. Narratively it would be an imperceptible change but the experience of performing it very different.

There are other ethical considerations that come up as auto-biographical shows age. In a piece that is largely direct address, talking to the audience as ‘myself’, about visceral life moments, deliberately invites connection. But the audience experienc of live performance is in real time and in post show talks and surrounding conversations I don’t want to disrupt that relationship, or burst the world of the play, by no longer being the me they just met. Of course everything in the show is still true but in a production which attempts to bring honesty, to subjects often not talked about, I’m concerned with maintaining my authenticity and honouring shared vulnerabilty. And what if I’ve changed my mind about something?

This brings me to my next point which is about the paradox of working from difficult personal experience. It’s so powerful to bring a story into the light to say ‘I stand for this’ or ‘This has happened to me, so maybe to you, or people you know’. So is the challenge, healing and joy of art. But how is the artist’s recovery from a trauma affected by both their sharing of it and the process of continually re-inhabiting it on demand? How do they get to outgrow it?

My own experience was that it was fearfully hard at first to disclose something I’d kept private, then it was unintentionally and wonderfully cathartic. As with most trauma, shame is an underlying problem and being increasingly open has enabled me to assimilate my experience in ways I never imagined, as well as to meet and talk to amazing people. Now as time goes on it feels important that new things can happen and old experiences can be redefined in a bigger context. There are other things to say, do and be known for. With auto-biographical work though you are permanently linked to the material. You can’t just take your token back to the cloakroom and get your coat of anonymity back. Labels about issues and identity can’t only be worn in front of the people you feel safe with – they’ll be marketed to everyone and this complicity with the content of the show is reinforced with every repeat performance.

I was really taken by an exchange with artist @nathanieljhall, when he finished performing the auto-biographical show ‘First Time’ which tells his story of contracting HIV. He said that right from the beginning, because it was a trauma informed work, he only ever planned to perform two tours. When COVID affected that boundary he made a new one of a set number of shows – so he always had an end point in sight. That struck me as a very sound plan. I never set a cap but I remembered that my ambition for ‘How to be amazingly happy!’ was to do 50 performances. Adding up the stats when writing this article I was delighted to find that my next show will be my 50th!

So, with all this in mind I’ve decided that, to the best of my knowledge, the performance of ‘How to be amazingly happy!’ this Saturday at @StoryhouseLive in Chester will be my last one. I can hang up my costume in the knowledge that I’ve done what I set out to do and done my bit in creative service to issues that have come to matter so much to me and many others. It feels fitting that it will be part of a whole day of events exploring the experience of people who don’t have children due to choice, or not by choice, or both.

It also feels good to pass the baton. Stories will always need re-telling and I’ve recently met Deborah Pakkar-Hull (@otherhoodarts) who’s researching a new play ‘Otherhood’ about people’s experience of not being a parent.

I’m so grateful to ‘How to be amazingly happy!’ for all it’s brought me personally and professionally. In the same way as we are all a product of our experiences, I have no doubt it will continue to inform me as a person and as an artist. Perhaps the material of the live performance will evolve into another format, maybe there will be a follow up show. Time will tell, but with autobiographical work, whatever I make in future will inevitably be a story of what happened next. This is definitely ‘An End’ rather than ‘The End’.

To everyone who has been a part of, supported, or shared the story – sincerely thank you x

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Pushing Butter – The Collection

31st March 2022

This is a collection of five blogs I wrote while re-making my live art performance THE BUTTER PIECE. My writing is joined by five pieces from other artists whose work involves, or is about, the body. It’s an insight into the artistic process but also a reflection on themes that come up from living in our skin – being seen, looking and being looked at, queerness, shame, ageing, change and materiality.

You can read the collection on ISSUU HERE

Or download it below:

Pushing-Butter Download

The guest writers are: Orrow Amy Bell, Jade Blackstock, Gillian Dyson, Ursula Martinez & Holly Revell. It was edited by Jodean Sumner and features drawings by Gillian and photographs from Coralie Datta and Matt Rogers.

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Pushing Butter #4 of 5 – Shame & Safety

This is one of a series of writings that reflect on my journey toward re-making a performance art work called ‘The Butter Piece’. I first made it in 2011 and I’m revisiting it now a decade later.

‘The Butter Piece’ will be shown live at CLAY, Leeds on the 26th November and Colchester Arts Centre on the 1st December. More details here http://www.victoriafirth.co.uk/the-butter-piece-2021/

01 December 2021

I made The Butter Piece because I wanted to confront SHAME.

We don’t talk about how we get to know our bodies as children, about masturbation, about wetness, very little about periods.

I spent a long time thinking my body, how I wanted to explore it and the responses it made, or didn’t, were wrong.

Rude

Messy

Leaky

Dirty

Shameful.

I thought I needed to close up and cover up.

I think this got in the way of my sexual potential as an adult.

Of my pleasure and my presence in my own body and my intimacy with others.

I eventually found a kind of sensual emancipation, probably around the time I made this piece, but personal journeys don’t just stop at the good bits.

My body continues to change and have new experiences – many of which are similarly not talked about and fester as a result.

I wonder what the opposite of shame might be…

I’ve decided on safety.

I realise that for me, it’s the security of trust with another, social validation in community and plain old information that have allowed me to right myself.

To risk being seen.

To revel in being felt.

To uncover

Open…….

Want.

In order to eradicate shame, inhabit my body and pursue pleasure I first need to feel safe. Safe from embarrassment, judgement, ridicule, betrayal, blame. It’s emotional safety.

-If you believe women’s bodies are precious and sacred as I do, then maybe it’s a kind of spiritual safety.

And as I write this I am mindful that, before any of that, there’s the need to be safe from harm. A physical and sexual respect that should be beyond the need to ask for it. Yet one that has not been, and is still not, afforded to so many women.

We need less shame.

We need more safety.

SAFE is the baseline.

_{Photo credit @CoralieDatta}

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Pushing Butter #2 of 5 – My Mother’s Cellulite

‘The Butter Piece’ will be shown live at CLAY, Leeds on the 26th November and Colchester Arts Centre on the 1st December. More details here http://www.victoriafirth.co.uk/the-butter-piece-2021/

15 November 21

I mentally prepared before comparing pictures of me ten years ago and now.

It wasn’t enough.

I found it really difficult, especially looking at myself from the back – and I’d always considered my back one of my best features. I guess we look at our fronts more so the rear view image was more shocking.

I knew I would look older but I hadn’t thought about what ‘older’ translated to. It was less about wrinkles and more about shape. The shape of me is different in space – sturdier and more irregular. I have swellings and indentations in places that used to be smooth – hills and valleys instead of plains. Or perhaps it’s the same landscape after ecological change so the undulations and river beds have become more epic.

Weight is definitely a part of what I see, and I expected this, but what I find repulsive is where I have the heavy, dimply, ballast of my mum.

I have to do some work on this…

Why do I find features of my mother undesirable – is it because of her weight or her age?

Is it because of the relationship, her being my parent, or would it be the same with any older, or well upholstered, woman?

I think it is the relationship and lack of examples.

When I was a young the only women’s bodies I saw were those in magazines, TV and film or my mother. Such a fail-fail paradox. On one hand aspirational fantasies that I was physiologically programmed to never attain. On the other an inescapable destiny that I was desperate to individuate from. Where were the alternatives? Where were they then and where are they now?

As an adult I realise that my mum always looked great for her age. A certain amount of weight suited her and contributed to her youthfulness.

I believe I have become more attractive as I have gotten older. Or maybe I have shifted my parameters of beauty. My skin is increasingly porous. More of who I am comes through. The inner informing the outer instead of the other way around.

I look more like me and this ‘me’ is a product of my nature, my nurture and the congruence of myself.

_{Photo Credit @CoralieDatta}

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The Shape of Water

22nd September 2021

An extraordinary thing happened to me.

I was walking along the canal when I saw a duck dive so it was half submerged and half above water – bum up.

And in that split second I KNEW exactly how it felt. Not emotionally but kinaesthetically. I had a total experience of knowing it’s shape, how much it weighed, what it was like to touch and how it’s body felt in and out of the deep. It was one of those unexplainable moments.

Later I realised my lockdown projects of keeping (and so handling) chickens, wild swimming and trying to be in my own body were all ingredients of this withchery.

There is more.

My sister and I have decided to read all my mum’s books. My mum loved reading and always had a book in her hand, or splayed half open on the arm of the chair where she was sitting.

In holding a ‘mum book’ out in front of me I can see my own hands and also slip into another consciousness where I can simultaneously experience her hands and know the feel of them around this same book. Part of what I see is heredity but there is another Knowing of her shape and sense of touch that I can trace on top of, or under, my own.

Later I realised my experience of caring for my mum in her end of life journey meant I knew the intimacies of her body in a more tactile way than I ever had before. Her skin, her joints, the weight and texture of her landscapes – the physical act of caring bringing a tangibility to our continuing bond.

I wonder about the impact of a year, in which most people had no, or very little touch, on our embodied empathy. The collective context of the pandemic has lent itself to online sharing and temporary communities of individual experience – loss and grief have been real points of connection for me and many.

But I wonder about the physical body, the vessel that holds the heart and spiritual self, it’s potential for us to make connections beyond our busy everyday consciousness. The intimacy of this raw material that knows that you, a book, a bird, a hand, love, are all one in the universe.

The words ‘feeling’ and ‘touching’ have multiple meanings and that makes a new kind of sense as I realise anew that what I experience physically has a relationship with what I experience emotionally – even across space and time.

We all transfer, imagine and recreate touch we have felt.

We can feel the shape of water.

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I’d like to introduce my Partialner

silhouette of woman looking through window at snow

28 December 2020

My relationship is drifting.

I guess lots of them are – I’m sure it’s very common.

It’s got to the stage where we often sleep separately. It makes sense to have separate space. Do our own thing. We’re still sharing a home – it’s a pandemic.

We’re co-operative with food and laundry. We haven’t broken up. But we’re not really together either. It’s a kind of love on ice. There is affection and occasional bursts of the old us, mainly it’s the pipe and slippers us, very little of the passionate or fighting us, quite a lot of what might otherwise be called friendship, and a big lot of numb.

I’m glad of the stability, but it’s very expensive. Having intimate company so close and yet feeling alone is tough. Occasionally the proximity makes the relationship seem just around the corner but we never catch it up and so it’s another little death – of the not good kind. We both want more but we’re kind of settling. A snow covered, quiet, disquiet.

The quiet of being behind glass. Peering through the window, visiting a Christmas past of yourself where everything is cosy and firelit and full of sentiment and happiness whilst the Now you is outside with frostbite.

From the outside everything looks the same. We still spend our couple currency. We still do our public facing job of Together. I don’t know if it would be easier to say and do otherwise but it seems unnecessary disruption just now and what would be the difference? Maybe it would be more honest but who knows what the truth is anyway? We are still having a relationship. We’re both still here in our emotional comfort blanket. A Right picture.

But it’s like everyone else is looking at the picture on the outside of the jigsaw box and inside it’s in bits. Oh, some of the edge pieces are joined up and shapes of coloured clumps hang together – but no-one cares quite enough to put the big light on and do the difficult expanse of sky.

I don’t know who it means I am. Tenacious, weak, trapped, kind, hopeful, stupid. I don’t know why it’s stretching on so long. Whether that’s a good sign or bad. Is it a long winter before the spring or an icicle waiting to drop?

I don’t even know what to call it. An unconscious uncoupling, a friendship without benefits, ships passing in an uptight night. There are so many shades of together and not together right now. Why do we not have more words for snow?

I’m tired. I’d like to Declare.

Ladies and gentleman. I’d like to introduce …my Partialner.

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#3 of 3 – Daring Greatly

29 May 2020

This spring I cared for my mum in the last days of her illness. I wrote several times during that period as a way to comfort myself. Here is the last of three blogs taken from some of that material. In sharing them I am mindful that not everyone is able to care for, or even see, their loved ones, especially in these challenging times; that not all caring relationships and indeed family relationships are the same; and that some of these thoughts might be painful to read – but I have benefited from finding connectivity and community around loss and learnt how to be around it from the openness of others and so I wanted to make an offer in that spirit and with love for all of our experiences.

In some literature and cultures it is believed that there are three deaths. The first is that of the body, the second is when the body is committed to its final resting, the third is when there is no one left to remember you or speak your name.

My mum wanted to be remembered and she often saw her grandchildren as her legacy. As her daughter without children it occurred to me that I might feel lacking in not being able to provide a legacy in accordance with her feelings and that I wanted to serve my mum’s legacy in my own right.

This wasn’t the only question to come out of my recent experience with regard to being childless. When I think about the care I was able to provide for my mum the question naturally arises who will do that for me? In a society where more and more people don’t have children or whose families are separated geographically there is some real thinking for us all to do on what the future of care for our elders looks like. But for me that’s for another day. Right now I’m trying to check in with myself about my legacy deficit.

And then I do and find to my surprise that I am alright about it. I am trying to reverse engineer why that might be. I’m sure some part of it is to do with the time I have spent assimilating my thoughts and experience of being childless but it’s not just that – I’ve got a scrapbook of other possibilities.

First, when I think about my mum wanting to be remembered I am not sure if she meant that she didn’t want to be forgotten and that’s not necessarily the same. Since she died I have encountered an outpouring of feeling and respect that revealed a woman bigger than just the one I knew. Yet despite her strong character she sometimes didn’t see the extraordinariness of what she achieved. In terms of distance travelled, my mum achieved a lot in her time especially for her time. Within the historical context for women and personal circumstances all her own, my mum came a long way – but I don’t know if her confidence matched her achievements. Maybe in wanting to be remembered she wanted to know that she was visible – that she mattered. I know she did and the distance I travel springs from her achievements so her legacy goes on. Ripples carry movement before and behind them.

I then realise lineage is often thought of directionally. From this, to that, in a single straight line. That just isn’t my experience of influence. Perhaps inspired by the role model of my mum’s strong character, even though it felt like it was to establish my individuality, I have sought out amazing family friends, mentors, colleagues and confidants of my own. The matrilineal influence that starts with the imprint of a parent and then becomes a community – is not a line it’s a web. So although children of my own could have been a certain kind of thread it is by no means the only way that I vibrate my, or my mothers energy, into the world. And not the only way hers was shared. We all spin in all directions.

I think about our ancestors, our collective consciousness and I think about trees. If one falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? What is the remembrance of a tree? It could be in the preservation of it’s form in antique furniture much loved and passed down from one generation to the next. But it can also be it’s quiet degradation as it shelters then feeds a whole ecology. Or it can burn. It can be bonfires around which we sit and make memories or provide heat at the heart of our home. All different, all sacred.

I’ve found in these blogs how time and space are more than how we choose to organise them. Once we expand our notion of connection my mum has abundant legacy irrespective of my family circumstance and I see myself in that. I carry her continuing presence alongside my own. I show her things through my eyes.

Our longevity is as expansive as our imagination. So perhaps the only things to be concerned with are continuing to dare greatly and being a bit less English about expressing emotion and gratitude. Instead sharing the release of telling people – without waiting for an occasion. I see you, I love you, you matter. We will say your name.

Thank you for reading.

My name is Victoria. My mum’s name is Christine.

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#2 of 3 – The Art Of Caring

21 May 20

This spring I cared for my mum in the last days of her illness. I wrote several times during that period as a way to comfort myself. Here is the second of 3 blogs taken from some of that material. In sharing them I am mindful that not everyone is able to care for, or even see, their loved ones, especially in these challenging times; that not all caring relationships and indeed family relationships are the same; and that some of these thoughts might be painful to read – but I have benefited from finding connectivity and community around loss and learnt how to be around it from the openness of others and so I wanted to make an offer in that spirit and with love for all of our experiences.

THE ART OF CARING

Caring is not
pictures of holding hands
doves
still ponds
Or soft woollens.

It is physical and sweaty.
Full of impossible heart hurdles that you have to make possible.
Holding your sadness whilst not compromising any bit of available joy
and finding small wins that are always smaller and less frequent than the last ones.

It is fierce – fierce like a lioness
Leaping over your reaction to repugnant smells and sounds so you can stay close
Protective and exposed
to a part of someone’s body that you’ve always been conditioned to not see
– to go beyond your modesty and theirs.

And it’s tough – tough like a thick rope that will not give way not matter how frayed.
Encouraging someone to push when they can
trying to accept when they can’t.
Sometimes you think you know better
Sometimes they know better
Sometimes no-one knows why what worked today won’t work again tomorrow.

Caring is an alternate time
Slow, as you measure mouthfuls… and sips….. and breaths.
Fast in panic –
I want to know all of your story
I want you to know all of my story.
Agonising over not enough, or too late.

No, caring is a bear.
Intimate – like a lover
Finding the familiar shapes of dances, embraces, touches that might make movements easier to

I want to give you the best chance at this experience and transition.
I want to give myself the best chance at this experience and transition.
We are both doing something we have no idea we can do
-or how to do it.

It’s the comfort of being of service at the time when someone must, willing or not, entrust themselves to you.
I’m glad it was me.
And I’m glad of the others
territorialism collapsing into gratitude.

Caring is total
Every part of me is occupied with every part of you.
I am writing my novel – an invisible tome of observations
of what you need and how you work.

Washing – there’s a lot of washing.
(One of us is often in a half state of undress).

We cannot be frightened together
And we don’t want to talk about
-but finding a balance.
Helping you to understand what is happening with honesty
in truth is independence…

Not wanting you to go
Not wanting you to be in pain
Not wanting you to lose consciousness because then you will lose me too

Caring is selfless
A shell full of patience
from the ocean floor.

We are in a bubble.
Of ever decreasing circumference

Moving a living space, then a limb, then a lip

There is something restful in being this present.
Our small world of basic needs
Microscopic details
Yet my heart so big it is pressing against the ceiling of your room.

I am heroic – I am big enough to hold this.
I am a lost child – I don’t know what to do.

I wanted to capture everything, take photos, make imprints.
I don’t think it was hanging on
more awe that we are doing this
crafting it between us.
Giving and receiving our completely separate journeys in complete symbiosis.
This is our blood.
This is our art.

We paint it together.

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#1 of 3 – All The Stars Are In The Sky

14 May 2020

This spring I cared for my mum in the last days of her illness. I wrote several times during that period as a way to comfort myself. Here is the first of three blogs taken from some of that material. In sharing them I am mindful that not everyone is able to care for, or even see, their loved ones – especially in these challenging times; that not all caring relationships and indeed family relationships are the same; and that some of these thoughts might be painful to read – but I have benefited from finding connectivity and community in loss and learnt how to be around it from the openness of others and so I wanted to make an offer in that spirit and with love for all of our experiences.

ALL THE STARS ARE IN THE SKY

I have only seen one person die.

Been with them at that moment – or series of moments.

It was the father of a previous girlfriend. He was called Tony. She is called Jen.

We hadn’t been together long and so it was a rather rushed intimacy and polite social dynamic to be with her family at such a personal time.

I was so frightened. Frightened of not being useful or being socially awkward, frightened of seeing death, frightened of death, frightened of not being able to cope, frightened of making it all about me. I coached myself on the journey into each visit – to remember what mattered, to try and be a vehicle, a vessel for whatever the circumstance required.

I didn’t know at the time but I definitely did after, and every day since, what a gift and privilege it was. Such a sacred and precious life experience. I learnt things – all the small steps of someone slowing down. How looks change, how time changes. How a family can hold space for it. And that death can be peaceful and releasing.

After I felt euphoric – celebratory. So glad that I had made it through, that he had, that we had. He had taught us the last lesson a father can – how to die – and taught us well. It will forever be a blessing.

Now I sit with my mum as she slows.

Her eyes don’t open. Her mouth opens permanently but there are no words where I want them. But I am grateful for recognising the signals, having had an experience to give some familiarity to this unimaginable time in my life’s journey – and hers.

I think about Tony and ask that he will look after her if she needs it. Show her the way in ‘whatever next’ in the way he showed me on this side how to go. It is a comfort.

It reminds me of how much a gift that sharing was. That the thing I was terrified to be anywhere near – is actually so necessary to be a part of.

And even though Jen and I were only on the same path for a short time and have since found new relationships, I find a continuing connection from sharing that experience.

And even though they never met and knew nothing of each other, I now think of our parents being connected in this universal journey. Like the lights of lamposts running down a long curving road. The light of one, and then the light of another, shaping the darkness.

They say you meet someone for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I always thought that maybe I met Jen to accompany her on her dad’s passing. Now I think perhaps it was so her father could accompany me and my mum on hers. Time isn’t how you think it is. Space is spacious.

And as I open my mind up to this possibility I know my friend Jo’s mum is on the cusp of her passing. And there will be more with us. And I think about how my mum might light a lamp for her, then her to light the way for the next. The spirits of all our parent’s connecting. Their light comforting each other so that in ‘wherever they are’ no one is lonely or lost – no matter how far apart the links in the chain.

And together the constellation of their lights hold us up

– and gives us the heart to hold more.

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Happiness, reinvention and childlessness

01 October 2019

This interview was first written with FELICITAS SOPHIE VAN LAAK for DIVA magazine online when I was touring my autobiographical solo show ‘How to be amazingly happy!’. You can see the original posting here:

https://divamag.co.uk/2019/10/01/how-to-be-amazingly-happy/

DIVA: Why is our society obsessed with being “amazingly happy” and what does that sentiment mean for you?

VICTORIA FIRTH: I think everyone is looking for happiness or fulfilment and we’re also being sold ideas of it all the time. What it means or really looks like is a million-dollar question, but I’m pretty sure it’s not as advertised. When I thought about it, for me, I decided that identity, purpose and belonging were all things that I wanted to develop. I nearly put love on the list, but it felt too problematic at the time. Someone said to me at my last show that, “Happiness is being in the present moment,” and I think there’s also probably a lot to be said for that.

Your solo show also talks about women who don’t have children. Why do you think there’s still so little social validation for those women?

Generally, we’re not as good with difference and complexity as we ought to be – or like to think we are. Motherhood is still such an established archetype for women and is embedded in gender ideas, education, working culture, social expectations, conversational conventions and so on. For “The Patriarchy”, a single or childless woman is still a threatening idea but, to be honest, I think a lot of it is just ignorance and a failure to adapt to something that is becoming more and more common.

In your experience, are voluntary and involuntary childlessness perceived differently?

Some people choose not to have children for personal, social, political, environmental or other reasons and may celebrate and empower that choice with terms like “child-free.” That’s great. The right to choose is paramount.

However, some people want children and either find that they can’t or don’t. People tend to think of infertility as the primary cause – a physical or medical issue – but social infertility is becoming more and more common. By this, I mean people whose desire to have children is negatively affected by their life circumstances, for example they haven’t met the right partner, or they’re waiting longer because of work responsibilities, economic pressures or lack of support. For those who do want children, not having them or trying to have them and failing is heartbreaking. It’s not spoken of much because it’s a very personal experience that can involve shame and vulnerability, so instead it’s an often invisible grief.

What makes the lesbian experience of childlessness unique?

I think the lesbian experience of both trying to have children and not having them has particular challenges. When I first started thinking about children, I was struck by the internalised homophobia that came up. Could I be a mother, should I be? I also realised how hetero-normative my ideas of family were. That my circumstances didn’t match those pictures but, in a perverse way, I was almost waiting until they did. I also struggled with a lack of role models, although that’s starting to change now.

For childless lesbians then, I think it’s easy to assume that they were never going to have children or never wanted to – which may not be the case. For those who want to parent, there’s the challenge of being self-determining. Then, more choices about how to go about it, who to involve, the cost and so on. Access to NHS support is more difficult for lesbian couples, as it often is for single women.

Yours is a “story of reinvention.” What things have you reinvented about yourself?

People have to reinvent themselves for all kinds of reasons – relationships that don’t work out, job changes, health issues – so it’s something everyone can relate to. For me, I started to put a different value on my own happiness. I decided to take more risks. I made some conscious choices about how I wanted to spend my time. I committed to trying out some things I’d always wanted to do and, if I wasn’t sure what they were, then I had a go to find out. I also wanted to have more fun and take myself more lightly. I still have to work on that, but it’s why I wanted to make a show that was funny as well as thought-provoking.

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