Biting the cherry
Bafta-winning writer Nicôle Lecky is unafraid of exploring life’s darker corners – or indeed the local golf club – to get to the heart of the story, as her new BBC drama Wild Cherry reveals
Lesley Edith
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The seed for Wild Cherry was planted for writer Nicôle Lecky one summer night in Surrey in 2021, just before she was about to shoot her Bafta-winning BBC Three drama, Mood. “I was driving past a high-end, Home Counties gated community and remember thinking, ‘Who are these people? Are they originally from London? Where did they get their wealth?’ I’d seen that kind of money in America, but not so much here. If you’re not aristocratic but you’re wealthy, where do you live? I didn’t know anyone who lived in one of those mansions – and I just wanted to get in.”
And so, she did just that. “I wormed my way into the golf club, had a drink and peoplewatched – which is my favourite thing to do.” This is how Lecky builds the worlds in which she tells her stories. “It’s about creating the production design of something as much as it is the people. You try and make sure the show feels as rooted as possible. What cars are people driving? What shoes are they wearing? You just want to be up close and absorb it.”
Allegra and Grace (May and Faires, right) face the music at school. BBC/Firebird
As for this story, Wild Cherry is about how complex and consuming mother-daughter relationships can be. It focuses on gated community residents and best friends, Lorna (Carmen Ejogo) a self-made businesswoman and Juliet (Eve Best) who was born into wealth and privilege. Naturally, their daughters, Grace (Imogen Faires) and Allegra (Amelia May) are also best friends and all feel comfortably at home in their Instagrammable world where residents appear to want for nothing. That is until an incident at the girls’ exclusive private school brings Lorna and Juliet into conflict, and each goes to extreme lengths to protect their daughter – and their own standing in the community.
With its glamorous setting and mix of adult and teen drama, Wild Cherry recalls the likes of Big Little Lies and Gossip Girl. And like those shows, it’s not just about secrets and glamour – it’s an examination of wealth and class. “Having money doesn’t necessarily make you happier,” says Lecky. “You might be able to deal with your problems differently, but those same problems still exist – whether you’re in a loveless marriage or struggling with your daughter.”
I love women. We are complex creatures in the best way
Nicôle Lecky
It’s a world far removed from her own. The 35-year-old actor, writer and singer grew up in Statford, east London, the daughter of an electrician father and a mental-health nurse mother, who passed away when Lecky was 19. Her love of storytelling and performance has been there for as long as she can remember. “I wrote a lot as a child, and I’d always danced and sang – every summer I’d do two weeks of dance or singing. No one in my family performed, so it really came from me. But my dad was a DJ before he was an electrician, so music’s always been big for him.”
Her love of music remains central to her creative process. “Once I start writing something, I usually get one or two songs that are like, ‘this is the show in my head,’” she explains, adding that for Wild Cherry the songs were Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez and Runo Plum’s slow dance. “I play them on repeat because it keeps me in rhythm. It becomes like white noise and I’m in a groove. The next day I put the same song on and I’m straight back in that world.”
Nicôle Lecky as Gigi in Wild Cherry. BBC/Firebird/Natalie Seery
Like Mood – a series on which Lecky was executive producer and writer, as well as being involved in creating the music and starring as aspiring rapper Sasha, who is pulled into the seductive world of social media influencing and, eventually, sex work – Wild Cherry also explores the dark side of smartphones and and boys and whether they feel they can speak up – and to whom.”
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Lecky, in fact, appears in Wild Cherry as Gigi, a life coach and the community’s resident American, who narrates the series. “I trained as an actor [her CV includes roles in Sky Atlantic’s Sweetpea, BBC stalwart Death in Paradise and the George Clooney film Jay Kelly] but while reading scripts I thought, ‘I could probably do this’. That’s where Superhoe [her one-woman theatre show that begat Mood] came from. There were stories I just wasn’t seeing.” Writing, she says, is liberating. “It gives you a level of choice, which is particularly hard for actors. You can feel like you’re in God’s waiting room for a long time, waiting for the phone to ring.” For Lecky, the waiting is definitely over.
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