Sally Wainwright

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Sally Wainwright
OBE
File:Sally Wainwright for Eureka! museum.jpg
Wainwright in 2018
Born Sally Anne Wainwright
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England
Education University of York
Occupation
Years active 1991–present
Spouse(s) Austin Sherlaw-Johnson (m. 1990)
Children 2

Sally Anne Wainwright OBE (born 1963) is an English television writer, producer, and director from Yorkshire.[1][2] Early in her career, Wainwright worked as a playwright, and as a scriptwriter on the long-running radio serial drama The Archers. In the 1990s, Wainwright began her television career, and, in 2000, created her first original drama series At Home with the Braithwaites (2000–2003).

She won the Royal Television Society's Writer of the Year Award for the 2009 mini-series Unforgiven.[3] Wainwright is known for her creation of the ITV drama series Scott & Bailey (2011–2016), Last Tango in Halifax (2012–2020), and Happy Valley (2014–2023).[4][5] Last Tango in Halifax won the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2013, whilst Happy Valley won the same award in both 2015 and 2017.

Wainwright is the creator of the 2019 HBO and BBC One television series Gentleman Jack starring Suranne Jones as Anne Lister and Sophie Rundle as Ann Walker.

Early life

Wainwright was born in 1963[6] in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, to Harry Wainwright and Dorothy Wainwright (née Crowther).[7] Wainwright was brought up in Sowerby Bridge, where she attended Triangle Church of England Primary School and Sowerby Bridge High School.[8] She attended the University of York, reading English and Related Literature.[9] She has an older sister, Diane Hilton.[citation needed]

Wainwright said that she had always wanted to write, and had started writing when she was young, from the time she was nine years old, and wanted to write for Coronation Street.[10] She said that when she was 16 years old in 1980 she saw a play called Bastard Angel by playwright Barrie Keeffe at the Royal Shakespeare Company and was deeply interested in its short sentences and naturalistic approach to dialogue.[11]

Career

While at the University of York, Wainwright took an original play called Hanging On to the Edinburgh Festival and found an agent, Meg Davis, for her writing in the process.[9] Meanwhile, she worked as a bus driver.[9] When she was 24, she left the driving job after she started writing for the Radio 4 series The Archers.[10] One of her contributions was to write an atypical story for the long-running radio soap in which the village shop was robbed. After that she wrote for Coronation Street, developing her writing skills, from 1994 to 1999. She has since said that working on continuing drama was "a great education in discipline and a lesson that great stories are hard work".[12] She was mentored by Kay Mellor, who encouraged her to stop writing for soaps and to concentrate instead on original work. She created the TV series At Home with the Braithwaites about a woman who had secretly won the lottery. The programme was nominated for multiple awards.[13] In 2006, she wrote the drama series Jane Hall, which depicts the life of a female bus driver in London. Wainwright drew on her own experiences in scripting the series.[14]

She won the 2009 Writer of the Year Award given by the RTS in 2009 for Unforgiven, which took several awards including best TV series.[3]

Wainwright says that her strong yet flawed female characters are "almost real" to her and arrive "fully formed" in her imagination. She likes to control the television that is created and has done some directing and producing of her own work,[13] partly to ensure the scenery and dialogue reflects Yorkshire.[15]

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

Wainwright based the plot of her series Last Tango in Halifax on the story of her mother, who was widowed in 2001.[9] Her mother, Dorothy, moved to Oxfordshire to live with her daughter and rediscovered a lost love via Friends Reunited.[9] With her mother's permission, Wainwright developed the story of how she remarried so rapidly, showing extracts from the series to her mother before broadcast.[13]

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

Happy Valley, which was shot in Yorkshire's upper Upper Calder Valley and Hebden Bridge,[18][19] stars Sarah Lancashire, whom Wainwright had in mind as she wrote the role.[20] Wainwright made her directorial debut with episode 4 of the first series.[20] Wainwright had previously said that she was willing to write a third series of Happy Valley, but had commitments to work on other projects, and in 2016 producer Nicola Shindler indicated that the third series would not air until 2018 at the earliest.[21] In 2022 it was announced that a third series would debut on 1 January 2023.[22] The final episode was broadcast on 5 February 2023.

In 2016, Wainwright was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society.[23]

Wainwright wrote and directed a two-hour drama special for BBC One entitled To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters, which aired on BBC One in 2016 and in the US in 2017. Its subject is the Brontë family, particularly the relationship the three sisters, Anne, Emily and Charlotte, had with their brother, Branwell. While working on the drama, Wainwright said "I am thrilled beyond measure that I've been asked by the BBC to bring to life these three fascinating, talented, ingenious Yorkshire women."[24]

In 2019, Wainwright's Gentleman Jack, a drama about the 19th-century Yorkshire landowner, diarist, and open lesbian, Anne Lister, played by Suranne Jones, and Lister's courtship of Ann Walker, played by Sophie Rundle, premiered on both BBC One in the UK and HBO in the US.[25]

Personal life

Wainwright, who lives in Oxfordshire, is married to Ralph "Austin" Sherlaw-Johnson, an antiquarian sheet music dealer, son of the composer, pianist, and music scholar Robert Sherlaw Johnson.[26][27][28] They have two sons and own two Maine Coon cats.[13][29]

Wainwright was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to writing and television.[30]

Wainwright has said that she is potentially autistic and that social interaction is quite painful for her.[31]

Credits

Television

Year Work Credited as Notes
Writer Creator Producer Director
1991 Emmerdale Yes No No No 2 episodes
1992–1995 Children's Ward Yes No No No Staff Writer
1994 The House of Windsor Yes No No No 1 episode
1994–1999 Coronation Street Yes No No No 57 episodes[1]
1994–1995 Revelations Yes No No No 5 episodes
1999 Bad Girls Yes No No No 1 episode
1999–2000 Playing the Field Yes No No No 5 episodes
2000–2003 At Home with the Braithwaites Yes Yes Yes No Writer, creator and associate producer
2002 Sparkhouse Yes Yes Yes No Wrote all 3 episodes; credited as co-producer
2003 The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath Yes No No No 1 episode
2005 ShakespeaRe-Told: The Taming of the Shrew Yes No No No 1 episode
2006 Jane Hall Yes Yes Yes No 6 episodes as writer, creator and co-producer
2006 The Amazing Mrs Pritchard Yes Yes Yes No 6 episodes as writer, creator and associate producer
2007 Dead Clever Yes Yes No No Television film
2007 Bonkers Yes Yes No No 6 episodes
2009 Unforgiven Yes Yes Yes No 3 episodes as writer, creator and executive producer
2011–2016 Scott & Bailey Yes Yes Yes No 31 episodes, 19 as writer. Co-creator Diane Taylor
Based on an idea by Suranne Jones and Sally Lindsay
2012–2020 Last Tango in Halifax Yes Yes Yes No 24 episodes as writer, creator and executive producer
2013 The Last Witch Yes Yes Yes No Pilot episode/Television film
2014–2023 Happy Valley Yes Yes Yes Yes 12 episodes as writer, creator and executive producer, 5 as director
2016 To Walk Invisible Yes Yes Yes Yes Television film
2019–2022 Gentleman Jack Yes Yes Yes Yes 8 episodes as writer, creator and executive producer, 4 as director
TBA The Ballad of Renegade Nell[32] Yes TBA Yes TBA

Other

Honours

  • 2003: Best Short Drama Banff Festival for The Wife of Bath's Tale
  • 2009: RTS Awards, Best Drama Serial for Unforgiven
  • 2011: RTS North West Awards, Best Writer for Scott & Bailey
  • 2013: Sky WFTV Awards, Technicolor Writing Award
  • 2013: BAFTA TV Craft Awards, Best Drama Writer
  • 2013: BAFTA TV Craft Awards, Best Drama Series for Last Tango in Halifax
  • 2014: Broadcast Awards, Best Drama Series for Happy Valley
  • 2014: British Screenwriters’ Awards, Best British TV Drama Writing for Happy Valley
  • 2014: Crime Thriller Awards, Best TV Series for Happy Valley
  • 2014: TV Choice Awards, Best New Drama for Happy Valley
  • 2015: Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, Best Drama Writer
  • 2015: BAFTA TV Craft Awards, Best Drama Writer
  • 2015: Edgar Allan Poe Awards, Best Television Episode for Happy Valley (episode 1)
  • 2015: WGGB Awards, Best Long Form TV Drama for Happy Valley
  • 2015: Edinburgh TV Awards, Best Programme of the year for Happy Valley
  • 2015: BAFTA Awards, Best Drama Series for Happy Valley
  • 2017: RTS Programme Awards, Best Drama Writer for Happy Valley
  • 2017: RTS Programme Awards, Judges' Award
  • 2017:BAFTA Awards, Best Drama Series for Happy Valley[33]
  • 2017: BAFTA TV Craft Awards, Best Drama Writer for 'Happy Valley'
  • 2020: Royal Television Society Awards, Best Drama Series Winner for 'Gentleman Jack'[34]
  • 2020: Freedom of The Borough of Calderdale [35]
  • 2020: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to Writing and Television.[36]

References

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  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 63135. p. . 10 October 2020.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

  • Sally Wainwright at the Internet Movie DatabaseLua error in Module:EditAtWikidata at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
  • Sally Wainwright on TwitterLua error in Module:EditAtWikidata at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
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