Littlehampton: Wicked Little Letters based on 100-year-old Sussex scandal

Thea Sharrock's film Wicked Little Letters stars Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley

The director of a film set in Sussex that stars Olivia Colman has said the film was based on a real scandal which gripped Littlehampton in 1920.

Anonymous abusive messages, sent to a respected member of the community, were the inspiration for Wicked Little Letters.

The case of the Littlehampton letters became the subject of a House of Commons debate in 1920.

Thea Sharrock said they were "the first voice from which the film emanated".

The film, written by Jonny Sweet, sees Edith (Olivia Colman) receive a slew of anonymous letters littered with swear words - suspected to have been sent by her neighbour Rose (Jessie Buckley).

'Caged within'

Ms Sharrock said most of the real letters from the case were used in the film.

She said the letters were a means of "exploration" in the film, that allowed the author of the messages to find their voice "somewhere deep down".

Without spoiling exactly who that author was, Ms Sharrock explained the voice belonged to a "repressed young woman who needs to find a way out of the life that she's almost being sort of caged within".

For the director, the story of a woman finding her voice is "emblematic" of issues around female emancipation following World War One, when the letters were shared, to the present day.

"We're still struggling, there are still huge discrepancies between men and women, even though we're a lot better than we were 100 years ago," Ms Sharrock said.

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