The fact that many of the cast, the writers and the producers all have an Edinburgh connection means that setting the radio sit-com Secrets and Lattes in a fictional Bruntsfield coffee shop was exactly the right thing to do.
Clare and Trisha are two sisters who jointly run the coffee shop and their personal lives are also intertwined with the story of the shop, its Polish chef and the customers. Well we say Polish chef, that was Series 1. Now in Series 2 the chef is missing and things are a bit more complicated.
The dialogue is quick-paced and witty which you would only expect from a show with some of the Absolutely crew producing it.
When Clare is told that the chef is not locked in his flat as she might have thought, but is actually in Poland she exclaims: “HE’S IN POLAND? Well he’s never going to get the roasted pumpkin soup on by lunchtime then is he?”
Minty who is the aged eccentric customer/occasional cook exclaims in her South Edinburgh tones to Lizzie the young help in the café : “How could you have voted SNP and not know what a bannock is?”
Written by Edinburgh resident Hilary Lyon who also plays Clare, the show is produced by the Absolutely team which includes two George Watson’s old boys, Gordon Kennedy and Moray Hunter, of Absolutely fame.
We spoke to producer Gordon Kennedy early in the morning. He confessed that he is burning the candle at both ends right now as he is also involved with a West End production. Life is clearly busy for someone who started out life at school in Edinburgh and appearing on stage at the Fringe. You can read our earlier article about his early Fringe career here. While growing up Kennedy lived in Tranent where he is now patron of the resurrected cinema, and he only moved to live in Edinburgh after studying at Jordanstone College.
The show is clearly something quite dear to him and the rest of the team. He confessed that he does actually now spend time in Edinburgh coffee shops recording the background buzz just to get the conversational tone right in the radio show.
But Kennedy’s past experience of drinking coffee in Bruntsfield is from an era before the 53 coffee shops they have now counted between Morningside Station and Holy Corner. He cut his coffee teeth in The Napier on Holy Corner, an institution ‘where the girls could feel sophisticated and boys would just look on’, but the feel and tone of the drama in ‘Cafe Culture’ is real and up to date.
Kennedy refused to say which Edinburgh coffee shop it really is, but in the mile between Morningside Station and the Links he has counted 53 coffee shops and so it could be based on one or many of those!
The writer of Secrets and Lattes Hilary Lyon wrote and starred in 24 episodes of the BBC R4 comedy narrative series ‘Baggage’ alongside Phyllis Logan, Adie Allen and Peter Capaldi. This show was also set in Edinburgh and related the tale of three forty something women. It was largely down to its success that the team came to the notice of the BBC, and the comedy show is now commendably into its second series.
Hilary Lyon lives about 400 yards from where the coffee shop is supposedly set, and Director Marilyn Imrie lives in Edinburgh some of the time too. Kennedy said: “Most of the time Edinburgh actors have to hide their real accents, and so this is a nice opportunity not to have to do that.
“One of the script meetings was held in Edinburgh and we have tried to record at least one of the episodes there too but the financial reality means that it has to be recorded in London.”
Kennedy would not divulge too much of where the story is going, but the series is already at Episode 3 and so the characters are already well formed. If you need to catch up then you can find out more about the series aired at 11.30am on Mondays on the BBC website here.
June Brown plays God-fearing Minty who is ‘brutally honest about everything because she’s at that age’, according to Kennedy, and she is happy to step into the chef’s role temporarily. She proclaims rather too openly that she really didn’t like the Polish cuisine much anyway. This character is clearly a delight to play for Brown who most recently appeared on Broadway with Daniel Radcliffe and in the West End where she won a Clarence Derwent Award at the end of last year.
The stories have a firm base in the rather complicated lives of the two main characters, sisters Clare and Trish. Clare’s husband left her for an older woman and Trisha has an on-off relationship with a married man, all of which is designed to introduce emotional chaos into the cappuccino.
Kennedy confesses that he is very attached to some of the characters that Hilary has written into the script, and had to think hard about losing the Polish chef for example. He said: “It is a big decision to move any show away from one situation to another. It is quite interesting that people think the producers have a mighty sword to wield, but it’s not a power I wield lightly.”
He feels that having been a writer and actor himself is an advantage to the producing role, and he works in all of these roles whenever he gets the chance.
He continued: “We are about to record four radio shows with most of the Absolutely team in Glasgow in August and September. We won an Audience Award last year for a special that we did, and now there will be four more recorded before a live audience in Glasgow. These kind of things are a real treat to do.”
Kennedy puts his career path down to the Edinburgh Fringe: “We grew up in a fairly dull Edinburgh in those days but for four weeks of the summer Edinburgh turned into Rio de Janeiro. That’s why we ended up doing the shows and it was a good way to learn. In Edinburgh at that time you had to do your own production and publicity and so we knew all about that when we came to London.”
Kennedy appeared in the James Plays in the Edinburgh International Festival last year, a novel experience for someone who learned his trade by appearing on the Fringe. But he says that he found it very exciting, although thought he should be wearing a suit and tie all the time since it was the proper Festival!
He continued: “I took some of the actors from the James Plays to see Oliver Twist set in Berlin during the Second World War. I wanted to show them something they would not see on TV and they certainly did.
“There is a big range of acts and shows at the Fringe even now. When we were at the Fringe, people like Rowan Atkinson and the Young Ones team were appearing there just like Jimmy Carr or Alan Davies now. It is a fantastic opportunity for anyone in Edinburgh to get along to see some of these big name TV stars, but equally in a dark and dusty venue in another part of the town there will be someone just starting out. I think this is the reason the Fringe has survived for so long.”
Secrets and Lattes is on BBC Radio 4 on Mondays at 11.30am. The next episode to be aired is number 4 out of 6 but they are all available on the BBC iPlayer by clicking here.
Written and Created by…………………………………………..Hilary Lyon
Director…………………………………………………………………Marilyn Imrie
Producers……………………………Gordon Kennedy and Moray Hunter
Sound Engineer and Editor……………………………Alisdair Macgregor
Production Managers………………Emma Hearn and Sarah Tombling
Studio Manager…………………………………………………………Lucy Barter
Studio Facilities………………………………………………Motivation Sound
Production Photographer…………………………………….Richard Bailey
BBC Commissioning Editor……………………………………Sioned Wiliam
ExecutiveProducer……………………………………………………….Chris Pye
Production Company…………………………Absolutely Productions Ltd
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
