Jade Franks on how her hit bid inspired cleaning toilets in Cambridge: ‘I don’t tone down the anger – I just sneak it in through the back door’ | comedy

CAide Franks cleaned the bathrooms while her peers played polo. A working-class student in Cambridge, living a double life as a cleaner alongside full-time studies, she parlayed her experience into her winning play Eat the Rich (But Maybe Not Me Mates x). The comedy was an early and roaring success on the Edinburgh Festival fringe, selling out initial tickets to Oxbridge’s elite, adding additional performances and winning several awards, including the coveted Fringe First. With a run in London and a regional tour about to launch, Eat the Rich is now following in the footsteps of Fleabag and Baby Reindeer in its development phase for television, with a bidding war seeing the show currently in development with Netflix and Adolescent director Philip Barantini’s independent company It’s All Made Up Productions. But Franks is in the vaccination business, and she’s only just getting started.

“I’ve always been really ambitious,” says Franks, her accent accented and wearing thick cat-eye glasses. “I don’t think I was fully aware of the class so it kept me from getting where I wanted to be.” By depicting her own life, Eating the Rich undercuts Franks’ easy charm with anger at wealth inequality. Tracing her first term, mysterious rituals and strange environments bring her into regular pickles simply because she doesn’t understand the state of play: dinner is suddenly conducted in Latin; Her peers who spend money imitate her accent; And the shredded cheddar cheese you bring to the party is quickly rejected from the cheese board.

Franks’ fear of her job being discovered simmers beneath the everyday absurdities, violating the university’s rule against working during class time. In fact, it was only before final exams that Franks finally learned about scholarships that allow financially struggling students not to have to work alongside their studies. She has spent the past three years secretly working as a cleaner, as in the show, as well as working for a punt boat tour guide company, and would hide her face while on rivers for fear of being caught. “I wasn’t good enough to do the tours, so I was at the cash desk moving boats,” she laughs, spreading her hands, showing off long, pointed, patterned acrylics, “with nails like these!”

Franks grew up in Wallasey, Wirral. None of her family was involved in theater. “I’m just an attention seeker,” she deadpanned. “I went to local drama classes in the church hall, while my classmates were getting drunk in the park.” She attended drama school for sixth form, but even with the scholarship they offered, she couldn’t afford to go. After taking her A-levels, she applied again and was accepted by Lamda and later by Rada, but was again unable to accept offers. “It lit a fire in me, and it got worse when I got to Cambridge,” she says.

While the biographical presentation uses artistic license, the class encounters are all real. In the play, Franks’ sister comes to visit, and is rejected by an arrogant professor from dinner at the college because of what she is wearing. “It was absolutely true,” Franks says. Upon finding her email of complaint about the incident, Franks was amazed at how apologetic her tone was. “It’s crazy to see how much I’ve changed. Now, I won’t put up with it. I’m more secure in myself about how you should be treated and why people treat you that way.” How does her sister feel? “She’s so happy she got her own department,” Franks smiled. “She would say, ‘Why did you change my name and not yours? I want everyone to know.’

Inspired by the intense work of Michaela Coel, and always knowing she wanted it to eventually be a TV show, Franks began developing Eat the Rich in her third year at university. At that point, she wasn’t being cast outside of small roles (“I was never going to be Juliet”), so she began setting up her story as a standup. Comedy felt like the right path for her.

“I wasn’t toning down the anger or the politics,” she says. “I was just sneaking her in the back door.” After graduating, she worked as an educational assistant at London’s Royal Court Theatre, where she met many of the Eat the Rich team: director Tatenda Chamisso, dramatic actress Ellie Fulcher, and producer Jasmine Fisher-Rainer. Being laid off after the artistic director change “gave me a huge boost” to try out her own show, Franks says.

But she didn’t have enough money to make it happen. “There’s no way to go to the sidelines if you don’t have parents who can pay for it, or savings! People have savings in their early 20s. Who?” Franks says. She returned home with her parents. “I literally had no money and my mental health wasn’t good. I decided to get sober, which changed my life.”

Much of the final script was written in her head while observing the students’ exams in the summer, watching to ensure the kids didn’t cheat, and then quickly running out of the hall to capture ideas on her phone. “It was a period where my family was very worried about me, and then, with the success of the show, I was like, ‘Oh, thank God,’” she says.

But the road was bumpy, and the show was about to not happen. Backing from a private investor collapsed shortly before the margin, and by then, Franks had put all the costs on a credit card. “So, even if we didn’t do the show, it wouldn’t help me, because I was already in debt.” She and Chamiso filmed a video explaining the situation, and the online response was overwhelming, with some money sent from old school friends and huge sums from generous (and wealthy) Cambridge friends, as well as support from working-class artists who championed the team – “before they even knew whether the show was good or not!” – Like “Big Boys” comedian Jack Rock, whom Franks calls “the guardian angel of the industry.”

And yet. Although Eat the Rich has been a huge success on the margins, and has already overcome many barriers, it has not broken even. When Franks took on the fringe task as a student, she had been “brainwashed with the mentality that we were all going to work ourselves to the bone, not get paid, and get the flu.” Its producer won’t tolerate that. The team paid themselves fairly and stayed on board which meant they didn’t all have to share a bed Rat King style. But because of the wild way the theater operated, it meant no profit. Every step of the way, Franks has continued to encounter barriers that prevent people like her from being able to make art that doesn’t compromise their health and requires a safety blanket from family funds. “The fringe should be a place where people can fail, but you can’t afford that. And I can’t afford that,” she says.

Her desire to change the unfair model of the industry spreads far beyond her shows. Beyond Eat the Rich, Franks is an independent creative consultant for theater, attracting more diverse audiences and making people feel welcome. Far from being a plus, this is a necessity, especially as theater moves toward dynamic pricing, making it more difficult for less affluent audiences to attend. TV deals are notoriously fickle, but if the Netflix series comes out and makes “a lot of money,” Franks is determined to use her success to give others a leg up. She is “overwhelmed and excited” to work with her colleague Barantini. “It was crazy, being able to choose,” she says of the attention she received after the sideline, and the big meetings she had with TV producers. “I think everyone understood why working with Phil would feel like home. But these are early days.”

What will you do with the money, and everything is fine? “Right now, the outreach I do in the West End is just me with my huge spreadsheet,” Franks says. “I’d like to set this up as a business and have a team. Ask every commercial theater to sign up to the scheme which I’m on,” – she laughs when she finds the right word – “owner, where you have to have good seats allocated for £10 for my team to get out to the right people.” She has big ideas for the fringe, too: to make it a space where people can try and fail, without fear of losing everything.

Having worked her way through the elite, inequality-ridden areas of Cambridge and UK theatre, the desire to do something about it all, to break down doors to keep some people out, runs deep. “I can’t change the system by putting on a silly show for a little woman,” Franks says. But that won’t stop her from trying.

Eating the rich (but maybe not me you guys x) is in Soho Theatre, London, January 12-31; Liverpool Everyman, April 16-18; and Bristol Old Vic, from April 28 to May 2.