The Friends Are Back

Kay Mellor has turned her hit TV drama Fat Friends into a stage musical – and she’s never been so nervous. Tony Greenway talks to her just weeks before curtain up

KAY Mellor is terrified. In just a few weeks, Fat Friends, her first-ever musical, opens at the Leeds Grand Theatre before going on a national tour – and her stomach is performing cartwheels.

It’s funny – funny strange, not funny ha-ha – to see Leeds-born Mellor so rattled. She is, after all, one of the most famous and successful scriptwriters, producers and directors working in British TV, and her name packs an awful lot of power. Her career highlights include creating and writing (or co-writing) Playing the Field (with Lesley Sharp), Band of Gold (with Geraldine James), A Passionate Woman (with Billie Piper), The Chase (with her daughter, Gaynor Faye), The Syndicate (with Timothy Spall), last year’s In the Club (with Hermione Norris) and, of course, Fat Friends, which made star of James Corden, who is now busy conquering US television as a late-night chat show host. (‘What’s James doing now?’ she jokes. ‘I think he faded into obscurity...’)

So Mellor knows she can write a good TV drama series. She’s done enough of them. But a stage musical? Umm. Not so much. She admits that she didn’t even know what a musical supervisor did before working on this production; but, despite her shredded first-timer nerves, she’s enjoyed every minute of the process. ‘For me it’s wonderment,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m in a Christmas grotto and every corner I turn there’s something new and exciting. It’s really lovely.’