Interview Special: Victoria Canal and Tommy Jessop

Access All: Disability News and Mental Health

Musician Victoria Canal won the Ivor Novello Rising Star award in May, and has built an army of fans since supporting Hozier on tour around the UK this summer. She tells Nikki Fox and Emma Tracey how it felt to have Coldplay’s Chris Martin praise her songwriting, why she’d love to collaborate with The 1975 and how she found her sound by adapting her technique on the guitar. Plus, Victoria gets deep about the experience of writing about her body for the first time, and how it felt as someone with a limb difference, to hear ten thousand people sing her lyrics back at her. Victoria’s UK headline tour starts in September before she sets out on the road across Europe and the US. Actor Tommy Jessop made a big splash in the TV series EVERYONE was talking about – Line of Duty. When the show wrapped however, the phone stopped ringing. So, Tommy decided if he wanted to be a lead actor in a film, he was going to have to make it happen himself. ‘Tommy Goes To Hollywood’ is the new BBC Two documentary which tells the story of Tommy in Tinseltown. Tommy and his big brother, Emmy-nominated documentary maker Will Jessop, tell Emma and Nikki what happened when they tried to break America. You can get Tommy’s book ‘A Life Worth Living: Acting, Activism and Everything Else’ from any good bookshop. Recorded and mixed by Dave O'Neill, Produced by Beth Rose, Keiligh Baker and Rebecca Grisedale-Sherry. The researcher was Efe Imoyin-Omene. The editor is Damon Rose. Email: [e-mail] and Google us for the latest transcripts. Find us on BBC Sounds, smart speakers, and 5 Live early on Monday mornings. Nikki Fox is the BBC's disability correspondent who can also be seen on The One Show.