When all of this is properly over, I’m looking forward to just being joyful
Creativity is flowing for Andi Osho, as she chats to MARION MCMULLEN about her debut novel, a new podcast and Line Of Duty
We’re soon going to be seeing you in the new series of Line Of Duty. Was filming hit by Covid restrictions?
I DID my filming on the show just before lockdown came in. Covid was just some rumour then, that was happening on the far reaches of the internet. It was just a thing.
Then lockdown shut everything down. The cast and production crew formed a bubble so they could keep everyone safe while doing the show.
You’ve been doing a lot of acting, from Sky One drama Curfew alongside Sean Bean and Adrian Lester, to BBC’S Death in Paradise and Shazam! with Mark Strong. Has drama now taken over from stand-up comedy?
ACTING actually came first. I came out the gate and was appearing in Eastenders and it theatre.
Then I started getting stage fright going to auditions and I thought this is wasting everyone’s time, so I started doing stand up. It gave me an opportunity to perform that I could control. It was something positive and I feel that bit more confident having done my time on the circuit and a lot of high-profile TV shows.
Stand up is the most terrifying thing you can do. Now I’m concentrating on writing and acting.
What inspired your debut book Asking For A Friend?
A FEW years back I was discussing my disastrous love life with a friend and she recommended I read a self help book. She recommended a few but I read them all.
Afterwards I wanted to write a book sharing what I had learned and it grew into Asking For A Friend, part dating advice, part love letter to fabulous female friends. For a while I was balancing it with all the other things I was doing like Curfew and the West End. I sat down and wrote when I could.
(Laughs) I was learning how to write a book. I have a naive arrogance that gets me in all sorts of situations. I was thinking ‘how hard can it be?’ And then you find out it can be really difficult.
My editor read the first three chapters and said ‘It’s great, but there’s too much dialogue’ and that’s because I’m used to writing screenplays. I think I wrote the last two thirds of the book in the same amount of time if took me to write the first.
I like to think it’s a great book for lockdown reading.
It’s a funny novel about three friends who come up with a plan to solve their relationship woes, once and for all. Are any of the situations you write about true? SOME things have inspired moments in the book. Things that have really happened in my life, the ones that you wouldn’t believe are true, like ending a relationship after a tarot reading.
That really happened and I used it in the book. Not that I did a whole Mystic Meg thing, but I was told in a tarot reading that he did not want kids so I confronted him and it was ‘end of the road, babe’.
How would you describe your new podcast, Creative Sauce?
(LAUGHS) I can say what I like and it all about creativity. It’s a really interesting subject and it’s for the creative in everyone – comedians, actors, writers, painters, poets and everything else beginning with P.
It’s not just for people who are established and are in the industry, but for people who have a hobby, or who are a bit stuck for inspiration and ideas.
I used to get bogged down in the mundane aspects of finding work and getting a job, and each episode looks at different aspects of working in the arts, from wealth to wellbeing, fear to freedom, legacy, failure, rejection, success and more, with some tips from people like Roisin Conaty and Richard Osman.
Richard had some good advice on rejection, saying you should try and be gracious when it comes to rejection because it could come back around and you could be working with the same people in the future.
How have you been coping with lockdown?
I’VE been sent a lot of books now I’m in that circle and I’m going to start reading, instead of watching Scandal... again.
I’ve done the token banana bread, it would be rude not to, and I’ve been in the kitchen a lot. It’s been quite relaxing.
People have called me a workaholic and they are probably right. I like to keep busy.
I think my last holiday was in 2018. I don’t do an annual trip, but I do like city break.
I’m looking forward to more socialising when all this is properly over and just being joyful.
■ Asking For A Friend is out now (Harper Collins, £8.99). Go to andiosho.co.uk for details of the Creative Sauce podcast.
DEATH BY ROCK AND ROLL
THE PRETTY RECKLESS ★★★★★ IN 2017, The Pretty Reckless landed a support slot on tour with grunge veterans Soundgarden. Then, after a concert in Detroit, the headline act’s frontman Chris Cornell took his own life, following a decadeslong battle with depression.
Some 11 months later, Kato Khandwala, friend and longtime producer for The Pretty Reckless, died in a motorcycle crash.
These events have inevitably shaped their fourth album, tellingly titled Death By Rock And Roll. The tone is fairly consistent – big riffs, frontwoman (and former Gossip Girl star) Taylor Momsen’s versatile voice, vaguely derivative songs. Death By Rock And Roll is full of emotion and talent but without the tight songwriting to match.
WHO AM I?
PALE WAVES ★★★★★ ENIGMATIC indie rock quartet Pale Waves have unleashed a show of force in the form of new album Who Am I?
This follow-up to their 2018 debut album My Mind Makes Noises serves up a rougher, 90s-centric take on the band’s renowned pop-infused choruses.
Laying down the track framework in Los Angeles before Covid took the recording process online and produced by Rich Costey (Muse, Foo Fighters), it combines grunge-tinged undertones with dancing highs.
The album retains the band’s penchant for indulgent pure pop melodies, but the introduction of rough around the edges late 90s and early Noughties production leaves you wanting more.
TYRON SLOWTHAI
★★★★★
NORTHAMPTON rapper Slowthai’s follow-up to his
2019 hit debut album Nothing Great About Britain showcases his broad range of styles.
Tyron combines Slowthai’s signature punky, aggressive sound with more reflective, tuneful tracks. The album’s lyrics are not particularly thoughtful but its unusual combinations of influences and sounds are sure to cement Slowthai’s place as one of the UK’S most interesting rappers.
NFU Cymru members in Carmarthen are invited to the next county meeting taking place tomorrow at 7.30pm.
Taking place virtually members joining the meeting will have the opportunity to learn more about the Welsh Government White Paper for agriculture that will set out a new Agriculture Bill for Wales. The meeting will also be an opportunity to discuss the current Welsh Government consultation on animal transportation and the NVZ legislation that will affect every farm in Wales.
NFU Cymru Carmarthenshire county chairman, David Gravell said: “This meeting is an important one and will be an opportunity for members to seek clarity on the latest Welsh Government policy direction and the current consultation.”
Members in the county will have received a joining link via email. If you would like more information on how to join the meeting, or if you didn’t receive the link, please contact the NFU Cymru office on 01982 554200.
WEDNESDAY, January 27 will go down as a difficult day in my time as President of NFU Cymru.
This was when the announcement was made by Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, that all-wales Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) regulations will be introduced from April this year.
I am deeply disappointed that despite previous statements from the minister that she was not minded to bring these draconian regulations in until after the coronavirus pandemic, the minister has decided to impose a piece of outdated, ineffective EU legislation that has proven to be ineffectual wherever it has been enacted before.
As a union we have worked tirelessly over the past four years to put forward a workable alternative to these regulations.
Back in 2017 we submitted a paper entitled ‘A vision for improved water quality in Wales’ which identified the immediate opportunities to support the sector to make water quality improvements though a series of 20 recommendations.
We have held numerous events focussed on water quality; we even appointed a Water Quality/ Nutrient Management Project Manager, a role jointly funded with Natural Resources Wales (NRW), that developed a draft water framework to maintain and improve water quality where it is needed.
We presented this framework to both the First Minister and minister nearly a year ago. Welsh Government committed to giving this further consideration, but we have yet to receive a reply. Despite this, we continue to work with partners to consider ways to take this work forward. Our commitment to finding farmer-led solutions continues and each month we have a special ‘Water quality matters’ column in our member magazine, Farming Wales. More information on the work we have done as a union to tackle this issue can be found on the NFU Cymru website.
What we hoped would come out of the work we have done over the last four years is effective, evidence-based solutions, targeting action through proportionate legislation, advice and investment measures to areas of Wales where it has been shown that improvements are needed. These regulations targeted purely at agriculture are unfair and unjust.
As an industry we absolutely accept the need to take our share of the responsibility. We have never argued against the need for a suite of measures that would include effective and proportionate legislation put in place, but we ask for this to be led by science and evidence.
The approach that has been adopted does not appear to follow that remit.
The nitrates review undertaken by NRW in 2016 suggested an increase in NVZ areas from the current level of 2.8% to 8% of Wales. Instead, we are faced with a 100% NVZ despite the fact that many catchments across Wales have good water quality status under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) - just 113 waterbodies out of a total of 953 (12%) are identified as failing due to agriculture.
The minister said that regulations make us comparable with the rest of the UK and Europe. This is incorrect. In both England and Scotland, they continue with a targeted approach to NVZ designation. In Northern Ireland and many other countries in Europe, when NVZS were introduced they were brought in alongside significant government-backed investment programmes.
The funding announced by our government is woefully inadequate to deal with the costs of investment that the government’s own analysis has shown will run into many hundreds of millions of pounds.
There is a vote to annul these regulations in the Senedd on March 3. We very much hope that Members of the Senedd will support our efforts to overturn these regulations and provide the opportunity to deliver measures that would be much more effective in delivering improvements in water quality where it is needed.
We would encourage you to contact your local political representatives to make them aware of the impact these rules will have on rural Wales. You can find out more information by visiting the NFU Cymru website.