'I cleaned toilets while studying at Cambridge'

Jade Franks was working in a call centre when she was accepted to the University of Cambridge. She felt like her life was back on track.

Growing up, she was ambitious and academic. She had been offered a place at drama school but was unable to afford the fees.

Sick of her nine-to-five job, she found the email address for an outreach worker at Cambridge, who helped her get on a degree course in theatre and education.

Franks was a few years older than her fellow students when she arrived. But it was her working class background rather than her age that made her feel like an outsider.

Dinners were conducted in Latin. The men tied jumpers around their necks and the women did not get glammed up for a night out, unlike Jade in her high heels and fake lashes.

They mimicked her scouse accent (she grew up in Merseyside), they questioned what school she went to and laughed when she brought a bag of grated cheddar to a party, to contribute to the cheeseboard.

"I felt really alone at times and I nearly left. The classism surprised me, I didn't expect people to make all these assumptions about me," she says.

'It was so messed up'

Jade recalls the time her sister visited her at university and tried to join her for a formal dinner in her halls of residence, only to be embarrassed by a professor.

"She had big heels on and an off the shoulder blouse. It looked really fancy, I think she looked great, but one of the professors came over to me and said 'she's going to have to leave'.

"We thought he was making a bad joke so we started awkwardly laughing but then he said: 'No, she's not dressed appropriately, she has to go home and get changed.'

"We said that wasn't possible so he went and got a gown and put it over her and covered her up, which was so dehumanising and steeped in misogyny. She already didn't feel like this place was for her, it was just so messed up."

'Jokes were being made about me'

While her classmates were preoccupied with exams, the May ball and where to spend their summers, Franks was worried about making her rent.

Unaware she was actually eligible for a grant until her final year, she was forced to find part-time work as a cleaner and for a punting company, despite the university rule that students should not work so that they could focus on their studies.

"I was cleaning toilets. I was cleaning buildings owned by the university and I knew I wasn't meant to be doing it so I kept it quiet, though a few of my friends knew," she says.

Franks was desperate to get into Footlights, the famous university drama group.

"I auditioned for a lot of shows and knew I was a good actor, but I wasn't good enough for their Shakespeare plays.

"I think it was because of how I sounded. I was quite stubborn so I'd always audition in my own accent, which I actually think would have made it interesting but they didn't think so."

Franks says she sometimes felt like jokes were being made about her so she started doing stand-up comedy, "in a kind of rebellion to that".

She went on to become president of Footlights after a rule change meant the position was voted for democratically, rather than "one posh lad picking the next posh lad, which is what it had been like forever".

In her third year of university, Franks started writing an autobiographical play, based on her time there.

After graduating in 2021, she moved to London and couch surfed for six months, before she got a job as an admin assistant at the Royal Court Theatre on its education team.

"I was reading loads of plays, meeting loads of directors and writers and I was just setting the foundations to be able to do my own work," she says.

But two years later, she was made redundant and had to move back home. "I was in a really bad place mentally. I gave up alcohol and started taking medication for anxiety, so I just needed to be back in Liverpool to look after myself."

Franks, now aged 29, had more time on her hands and could not stop thinking about fulfilling one of her dreams.

"I really wanted to take the play to the Edinburgh Fringe, but I knew it was a huge gamble.

"I didn't have a job, I had no money and I hadn't even finished writing the play, but I secured a venue and decided to just go for it," she says.

'Class underpins everything'

Franks managed to get the support of a private investor but it fell through at the last minute, so she put all the costs on a credit card and had to raise extra money from friends, including some of her wealthy peers at Cambridge.

Her one-woman show, called Eat The Rich (but maybe not me mates x), about her first term at university, debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer to rave reviews.

"I think it stood out because no-one else with stories similar to mine was able to get up to the Fringe because it's so expensive.

"The story that I'm telling stood out amongst a sea of stories that are perhaps not by working class writers," she says.

"It's bittersweet in a way, because I'm proud of the play's success, but I'm also acutely aware that some of it is owed to the fact that working class people are in the minority in the arts."

Franks hopes the show, which transferred to the Soho Theatre in London earlier this year and will tour Liverpool and Bristol before returning to the capital in the summer, will open up a conversation about class.

"I don't think people have the same language to talk about class as they do maybe other protected characteristics and they're often pinned against each other.

"Class underpins everything and the discrimination that some people face at university and at work is multiplied by your class experience.

"So I think it's something we should talk about more and there should be more art about it, written by the people from those backgrounds."

Franks is working with Philip Barantini, who directed Adolescence, on a TV adaptation of the play for Netflix. Fleabag and Baby Reindeer also went from the Fringe to the TV screen via Soho Theatre.

"I can't talk much about it but those comparisons are flattering and I'm really excited about it," Franks adds.

'I've kicked down a door'

Franks also works as a freelance creative consultant for various theatres, trying to help shows draw in more diverse audiences by allocating tickets to community groups.

"Those kind of trips to the theatre and those kind of experiences are things that people miss out on if they can't afford them or if they feel like it's not for them and I think they're essential for mental wellbeing.

"Everyone deserves a nice night out, no matter what your background is," she says.

She says class will always be at the heart of her work and she wants to tell "exceptional stories with very normal characters from normal backgrounds".

"Now that I've kicked down this door that felt so impenetrable for so many years, I want to bring other working class creatives along for the ride," she adds. "I'm just excited to let us all in and create our own ways of doing things."

Franks says she will never regret her time at Cambridge, despite the sneers and the cheeseboard faux pas.

She points to the "brilliant work" the university does to help people like her and says she owes much of her success to the outreach officer who helped her get in.

"I'm incredibly grateful but there is still more to do. I'm not angry at the individuals - everyone is a victim of their upbringing - but I'm angry at the system that perpetuates these divides.

"But I'm so proud that I went to Cambridge and I will never shy away from it."