Wild Cherry's Nicôle Lecky: "I wanted this to be elevated and glossy, which we don't always do in British drama"

Continuing to feed our TV drama obsession into glossy lives and gated communities is BBC One's latest offering, Wild Cherry, which revolves around a shocking scandal with teenage best friends Grace (Imogen Faires) and Allegra (Amelia May) at the centre of it.

Whilst the tumultuous years of adolescence are likely enough for a narrative in itself, series creator Nicôle Lecky digs deep into the affluent world of Richford Lake to examine mother-daughter relationships, privilege and the ever-haunting world of social media.

Lecky is no stranger to crafting a talked-about BBC series, having adapted her own one-woman play Superhoe into BBC Three's Mood, which was released back in 2022. The music-based drama was one of a kind, utilising music to tell a darker tale about the influencing world, one that we're all exposed to on the internet on a daily basis.

Wild Cherry is "another world beyond Mood," Lecky beams when we speak and reveals that she actually pitched Wild Cherry whilst she was making Mood. "I have so much respect and brilliant collaborators at the BBC ... I clearly wanted to keep working with them. It's a bigger world, lots more characters. I just have so much fun collaborating with the BBC and they really did want me to create something else."

When Grace and Allegra are accused of being part of this shocking scandal at their private school, expectantly, the rumour mill starts to churn and parents start to worry about their own children's welfare. Grace and Allegra's mothers, Lorna (Carmen Ejogo) and Juliet (Eve Best), are also left reeling by the prospect of their daughters being caught up in something so awful. As we see throughout the series, though, each mother goes to lengths of their own in order to protect their daughter.

As much as the location of a gated community played an integral part in Lecky's ideation process for Wild Cherry, so did the chilling nature of real life events.

"I was seeing and reading a lot of stuff in the news, reading different articles and just thinking about the pressures on teenage girls today," she reveals. It's an experience that every adult woman will be able to easily recollect but is one that Lecky and I have particular similarities with, seeing as we both went to the same east London secondary school.

"It really made me think about when I was at school – at our school – what I would have been like if I'd have had social media as a teenage girl. I think that's quite a different experience," she says.

But examining the story through the additional lens of mother-daughter relationships adds another layer to the series. "This gulf between women mothering daughters who've had quite a unique experience – I really wanted to dig into those relationships and also then look at how the mothers engage with social media when you've got your own things going on in your own life. So, it really stemmed from this small genesis of just wanting to dig into social media and women now, really through the lens of teenage-hood."

I remark that the thought of growing up in an age that feels as though you're constantly being surveilled and recorded online is unimaginable for me, with Lecky agreeing.

"I probably would say I don't see the benefit to having social media exist whilst you're at that age. There's so many pressures already. It just feels like an added layer of tension and something else ... to navigate your hierarchy in the real world and then also, navigate it online. So I think that's probably my takeaway from it," she says.

"I'm sure there will be some benefits to it, but I definitely felt perhaps more sheltered because I knew what was going on in my borough and I didn't really know what teenagers were up to in Calabasas or something. It feels like a really different time."

Where Mood dug into the world of influencing and sex work, Wild Cherry also doesn't shy away from exploring topical themes and issues. As well as digging into the pressures surrounding being a woman (and a young girl) today, Lecky thought it was also important to encapsulate "that unique tension of growing up and figuring out who you are" that isn't just an exclusive feeling to when you're navigating your teens. "It doesn't stop when you're a woman. Women in their late 40s or 50s can still be figuring it out," she says.

Another notable influence on Lecky's writing process were the "sexting scandals that have come out" which led to plenty of articles and the creation of Everyone's Invited, with Lecky wanting to examine all of that through a British lens.

Ultimately, though, it's also about creating a series that is entertaining. "It was about unpicking a world of tensions with lies and secrets. It felt like women – we can sometimes keep these secrets and we have that duality to our personality," she says.

Whilst Lecky took on a leading role in Mood, in Wild Cherry she takes on a different kind of character in Gigi, a life coach who starts working with the girls at the local school but appears to be a threat to the usual order of events in Richford Lake by virtue of being younger, American and always beaming with optimism.

Lecky admits that she didn't always know she would play Gigi, saying that it was a decision that came later in the development process, but that she wanted Gigi to end up being the narrative voice of the town.

"She does things along the way that I think you're a bit like, we don't maybe trust her. What's her angle? What does she want from this town and these women? Her friendship with Juliet feels complicated."

While Gigi's narration reminded me of shows like Gossip Girl or Pretty Little Liars, Lecky admits that her inspiration for that narrative style was born out of an admiration for seminal drama, Desperate Housewives. "That was a show that I felt like [voiceover] worked really well in. I wanted to look at these thorny subjects and themes, but I wanted it to be elevated and have that glossiness to it, which we don't always do in British drama," she says.

Part of that glossiness also comes in the title sequence of the series, which throws up a wistful montage of scenes and film shots that's accompanied by a song, which is performed by Lecky herself.

I had a feeling that Lecky is the songstress we hear in the sequence and she smiles, reminiscing about the process of creating that song with series composer Rotem Frimer. "It was always my intention, actually, I should say, to do the title music. I thought that was quite fun. Rotem and I got into a studio and we created the song – and that became the title track."

Anyone who's watched Mood already knows Lecky has some serious musical chops, with the series creator saying that she wanted to craft Wild Cherry to be "quite sonically different to Mood", wanting to delve deep into a more "nostalgic world" with her folky title song doing just that and seeking to evoke feelings of girlhood, she tells me.

When it comes to the cast of Wild Cherry, as well as being made up of rising talent, it also includes plenty of notable names likes Eve Best, Carmen Ejogo, Hugh Quarshie and Nathaniel Martello-White. Getting a window into those complicated adult lives and relationships is part of the fun of the series, but there are nuances to Ejogo and Martello-White's family story that show the differences in how they choose to raise Grace versus how Juliet has raised Allegra.

How does their racial identity inform their parenting decisions and how do they differ from Juliet's, if at all?

"You can't ever get away from what you look like, how somebody else might choose to perceive you. I think often your race is put on to you a lot of the time when you're just existing," Lecky says. "Lorna and Steven are just trying to live in this world, they're not walking around every day going, 'Oh, I'm Black or I'm mixed'. But I think once things start to go wrong in the world – it's not that they're not aware of it, but they see how, 'Okay, we're really being targeted here'.

"All of that stuff, though, is very nuanced and layered, as it usually is for you when you're living out your day-to-day. That was something that was really important to me – that's not what the series is about, but how you exist and therefore how they're parenting and how they're treated in the school, it does affect that."

She adds: "I think that the difference for Lorna and Juliet is probably as much about class as it is race. Juliet was born into wealth and she has this safety net that Lorna just doesn't have because she's self-made and she's not from the area. If things go badly, she won't be able to afford her house, schooling and all the rest of it."

As much as we do get flashbacks for most of the characters' lives to better understand them, it's Lorna's that is particularly interesting as it shows an entirely different life that is a world away from Richford Lake.

"For me, it was particularly important to see her background, her humble beginnings, where she came from and as she enters this very corporate world, which is quite overwhelming and can be very overwhelming for somebody from that background. It helps explain why she's so hard on Grace and the fears that she has for Grace, even just with regards to her sexuality," Lecky says.

While we certainly won't reveal any spoiler details about the (shocking) final episode of Wild Cherry, it does leave the door ajar for some continuation. The finale does a great job at tying loose ends up, but it also leaves a few burning questions that could form the basis of a second season. Is it just wishful thinking on my part? Lecky smiles and admits that it's a question for the BBC – but that it's a possibility.

"I think I'm always in the moment and I was just writing this part of the story. But yeah, I could definitely see where there is unfinished business. So I think I'd say watch this space."

It was recently reported that Lecky is heading up a Netflix adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons and whilst she admits that it is all very early days right now, she remains understandably tight-lipped about details.

But when it comes to the kinds of stories and narratives that Lecky wants to continue to be a part of, her goals are clear. "I'm very passionate about stories, mainly stories about women, stories about working class women and the issues we face. I am always particularly interested in diverse stories but again, being able to tell them in any setting is really important for me," she shares.

Lecky admits that she's really been enjoying acting recently (with an upcoming role in George Clooney's Jay Kelly on the cards) and says that's what she'd love to continue doing, potentially even returning to the stage.

Whilst Lecky herself remains passionate about her goal of bringing a variety of stories to life, how does she feel about the state of the industry right now in terms of who and what we're seeing on our screens?

"I think that my main feeling is still probably at the role I'm in as an exec, showrunner, mixed-Black, working class woman – I still don't see very much of myself at the top, quote unquote. So I think I just say that alone, there's probably a lot more that needs to be done."

When it comes to advising any budding writers from similar backgrounds, Lecky underlines the importance of authenticity and remaining dedicated to the kinds of stories you want to tell.

"You have to, ultimately, be passionate about what you want to make and be pretty dogged really, like really fixated on if that is the story you want to tell. Because I think ultimately, your voice is so unique and distinctive. So, you can't second guess what you think somebody will want from you. You have to really double down on 'Who are you?', what do you want to say and and try and take it to the right ears that are open to listen to it or read it.

"That's probably what I did in terms of when I finally wrote Superhoe. I'd written stuff before but perhaps I was always trying to figure out, 'Oh, might somebody want this or might somebody want to put this on?'. Actually, when I just sat down and wrote Superhoe, nobody asked for it. It was just something I wanted to do and that really did open a lot of doors for me. So, I think realising that being authentic is probably the best thing you you can do."

Wild Cherry premieres on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Friday 15th November.

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