The brilliant comedian Sophie Willan is one of the guests on this Saturday's edition of The Jonathan Ross Show. Will is best known to Tv viewers as the creator and star of the award-winning and partly autobiographical sitcom Alma's Not Normal.
I first saw Sophie Willan when she was in a stand-up comedy compeition at the Greenwich Comedy Festival way back in 2015. I was one of the judges and it was a no-brainer crowning Willan as the winner. She seemed to have come out of nowhere fully formed, with stories about her childhood and her drug-addicted mother and the lengths her mum went to to score crack. You can read that original review from 2015 here.
It has not been easy for Willan. for a while before she found success in comedy she worked as a sex worker to earn enough money to live. She spoke about the success of Alma's Not Normal and how it was inspired by her real life in a Guardian interview in 2021. She recalled that was excluded from school “for arriving drunk in a bikini like Alma does, so that’s very much lifted from my life”. But while Alma is extreme, “a lot of people watching it will recognise people they know. There’s a universality in it. Actually, it’s very normal for families to have all these kinds of complexities going on.”
Willan has gone on to become a distinctive voice and a star, deserving all the praise that has been heaped upon her, appearing on everything from Taskmaster to Richard Osman's House of Games to Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
Also appearing on the Jonathan Ross Show alongside Willan is Rebel Wilson, David Oyelowo and Jason Issacs, the star of one of the most talked-about shows of 2025, The White Lotus. Or as we call Jason Isaacs in our houss, Jason Ballsack.
And former cricketer Freddie Flintoff talks about the new documentary about him and the anxiety he suffered after his Top Gear car crash: "I enjoy watching the cricket bits I wish there was more of them in it. The hardest part is seeing people talk about you. I retired so long ago, it almost seems like a different life. Like watching from the outside."
The Jonathan Ross Show, Saturday 19th April, ITV1, 10.20pm.
Picture: ITV1
