Stories Of Care founder, Sophie Willan has won a BAFTA for Best Writer: Comedy for the pilot episode of her new sitcom, Alma’s Not Normal, which aired on BBC Two in April 2020. 

It’s incredibly rare for a pilot to be shortlisted for a BAFTA, let alone win. 

She triumphed over Charlie Brooker’s Antiviral Wipe, Charlie and Daisy May Cooper for This Country and the writing team behind hit BBC One sitcom Ghosts. 

Through Alma’s Not Normal, Sophie continues to develop the core missions of Stories Of Care; by offering a bitingly funny and unflinching take on class, sexuality, mental health and substance abuse. She celebrates Working Class women, Care Leavers and Sex Workers, and shows complex female characters, dealing with the hands they’ve been dealt while doggedly pursing their dreams. 

Sophie also plays the lead role, alongside Lorraine Ashbourne, who plays her larger-than-life Grandma Joan and Siobhan Finneran, as her heroin-addicted mum. 

The full series is currently being filmed in Bolton and Manchester and is due to be broadcast on BBC Two in later this year.