Isobel Waller-Bridge on creating the soundtrack for ITV’s Vanity Fair: ‘We used classical instruments in a modern, unexpected away’

Making waves: Isobel Waller-Bridge has written the music for Vanity Fair
Matt Writtle

Becky Sharp, the heroine of William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, is the sort of person you would want to be friends with, says Isobel Waller-Bridge.

“She’s so witty and charismatic,” explains the composer, 34, who feels she came to know Sharp while writing the music for ITV and Amazon’s upcoming TV adaptation of the novel.

“I’d keep both eyes open though — she’s so ambitious and relentlessly uncompromising. But you want her to win. Tonally, that is quite hard to convey but I feel like we managed it. I hope so.”

Waller-Bridge loves period dramas: “They are such good escapism — people on horses all the time. This adaptation feels fresh and fun, even though it’s a period drama.

"So traditional music wouldn’t have made sense. You’ll see with the costumes: they are so clever because they are so period, but witty. The music needed to support that.”

The Progress 1000, in partnership with the global bank Citi, is the Evening Standard’s celebration of the people who make a difference to London life and will be announced on October 10. #Progress1000

That meant using classical instruments “but in a modern, unexpected way to get more unusual sounds, without going completely insane.

"It was fun writing things that are epic in scale but specific, with a small range. And writing for Frances de la Tour’s character, Matilda Crawley, was the most joyous thing.”

The only person happier than Waller-Bridge about her latest project is her mother. “When I was starting out she sat through all my experimental music nights and would say: ‘Darling that’s very clever’,” says Waller-Bridge.

“Now it gives me so much joy to play my mum something she recognises and will know how to respond to.”

Waller-Bridge’s impersonation of her mother is uncannily similar to the one that her sister, Fleabag creator Phoebe, does. Waller-Bridge is older than her sister by just 15 months. She’s blonde but apart from that there is a strong resemblance, physically, in their mannerisms and sense of humour.

“People ask if it’s weird that Flea [the family nickname for Phoebe] is suddenly famous,” says Waller-Bridge. “I can’t explain it, but no, it feels right. This is what she was made to do. I’m so proud of Flea that it’s beyond anything. She smashed it.

Olivia Cooke in character as Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair
ITV

"We visited her on the set of Star Wars and it was like, oh, OK. Flea, my brother, who works in music, and I usually show each other our work before anyone else but we were not allowed to see Star Wars.”

Waller-Bridge designed the sound for Fleabag in all its incarnations, from stage play to the award-winning BBC show that broke America and is returning for a second series next year.

“The play was so scratch,” she laughs fondly. “We made ridiculous sounds — how do you make sex noises? We ended up with me in a cupboard on stage slapping my flesh. It was classic, actually. It’s nice working with someone where it’s not even a shorthand for communication, it’s just a look. It’s like working with your best friend.”

Waller-Bridge has just moved in with her boyfriend, the actor Thomas Arnold, in Archway. The house is still too chaotic to meet in so we’re talking in the kitchen of Fleabag’s director, Vicky Jones.

Jones’s living room is presided over by a cardboard cut-out of Beyoncé. “Everyone needs a bit of Beyoncé in their environment,” says Waller-Bridge. “Flea and I were saying ‘be more Beyoncé’ to each other for a while.”

They had “a noisy childhood”, growing up in Ealing with their younger brother Jasper. Their mother worked for the Ironmongers’ Guild and their father was in the City. “My mum and dad encouraged us to perform and be noisy and funny and express ourselves.”

She and her sister didn’t always get on. “We had this one epic fight. I got back from boarding school and Flea opened the door and was like: ‘This is my lair’.

ITV will launch their new take on the classic this weekend
ITV

"Mum had enough of our bickering so she told us to go up to the landing and literally fight it out. It was a proper, physical fight. We came downstairs bloodied but holding hands and we never looked back.”

Does Waller-Bridge recognise herself in Fleabag’s highly strung big sister character? “Flea told us she did put some bits of our lives in it. Her sister in the show eats a tomato sandwich.

"I once dropped that I liked tomato sandwiches into conversation at home with my brother and Flea — they knew what they were doing, I left in floods of tears.” She defends her culinary creation: “It is actually so nice. I have it with mayo.”

Waller-Bridge grew up playing lots of instruments, with a car-journey music diet of The Pet Shop Boys and Sting. “My mum would also sit us down to watch these epic dramas and I would say: ‘Oh, the music!’ My family would go: ‘What?’”

Boarding at the tiny, all-girls St George’s School in Ascot, she started to take music more seriously. “My piano is such a friend,” she smiles. “Before it went into storage I had a whole evening with it like a final date. It’s a black baby grand and it’s waiting for me.”

The way she was encouraged to keep on with the piano makes her “sad” that music is often the first to go in funding cuts.

“There’s a shortage of instruments. I’m often asked by free schools to make music with them for an afternoon.” She studied music at Edinburgh, then took a diploma at King’s College London under the composer George Benjamin.

She’s funny when talking about her early experiments, including a “rite of passage” improvising in a band called Tangent.

ITV Vanity Fair - in pictures

1/9

“I thought I’d be a pianist, then I started writing for people. I did weird stuff, like a piece for a trombone and a light switch. There wasn’t much music in it. It was a trombone making noises, mainly breathy noises. You really had to listen.

"That got me interested in the audience, their reaction, that relationship. It was performed at a pub in deepest Edinburgh. Ridiculous.”

Her break came when she started assisting a film producer: “Mum was thrilled. There were melodies.” When she writes she lets her first responses to the script guide her. “The important thing is being able to hear the script. Then you just go for your life.”

Vanity Fair was easy to write for, which is wonderful because often it’s a struggle. She wrote three samples for it in one night. When she’s working on one thing she can retreat.

“You’ll struggle, then five hours will go by without you noticing. My boyfriend has to bring me survival packs of Haribo.” She doesn’t listen to music when she’s working “because I want to fall in love with what I’m working on”.

Waller-Bridge doesn’t see herself as a female composer. “It’s not about gender.” Equality in her industry has been slow “but now it feels like it is picking up pace. There are lots more female composers now. When I was at university I was the only woman on my diploma and it was just Anna Meredith and Tansy Hall people knew of. I’ve realised a lot of my role models are women.”

The “geeky sound engineer stuff”, which can be off-putting to some, is fun, but also you don’t have to be über-technical to create or write music.”

Next, she’s composing for the new BBC Agatha Christie adaptation, with John Malkovich as Poirot, and a movie called Embers directed by Christian Cooke. “You wonder what effect these new projects will have — will I be darker this time next year?”

Vanity Fair begins on Sep 2 on ITV.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in