Self Esteem and Julie Hesmondhalgh on self-doubt, sisterhood and fighting back in dark times

Rebecca Lucy Taylor – AKA pop phenomenon Self Esteem – is having a brew with actor Julie Hesmondhalgh and Big Issue.  

It’s mid-afternoon on the hottest day of the year so far, and the lunch rush is over at Oxford House Café in Bethnal Green. Stylish young professionals tap at their laptops; sunlight streams through the windows. But it sort of feels, Taylor remarks, like we’re in the dying hours of a house party. 

“Sorry, this is getting a bit 3am in the kitchen,” she jokes, concluding an impassioned reproof on the state of council arts funding. “No that’s good,” Hesmondhalgh interjects, “that’s good! [Those are] my favourite conversations.”

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We’re supposed to be talking about the new Self Esteem album: A Complicated Woman. Hesmondhalgh – best known for her 16-year stint as Hayley Cropper on Coronation Street, the first trans character on a British soap – features on one of the songs. 

But 20 minutes into our interview, things have got political. Cuts to arts funding “silence” all but the most privileged voices, the pair agree. Cash-strapped councils reduced spending on cultural services by more than 40% in 2010-2020, with further declines since. It is, Hesmondhalgh says, a disgrace. 

“I don’t think I would be doing what I do now without being state-sponsored in the early days,” she reflects. “It’s probably the same for you?” 

“Oh, all of it,” Taylor nods. “Rotherham council created Self Esteem. I had music lessons, I had support. It’s so, so horrible and scary to think – no funding, and it’ll be gone.” 

According to the Cultural Learning Alliance, children in the most deprived areas of the country are half as likely to engage in performing arts outside school. Young people from privileged backgrounds are four times as likely to make it in the creative industries. 

“You look at every top public school,” Hesmondhalgh continues, “and they load hundreds of thousands of pounds into their arts programmes. You go to Eton, and then you’ve got drawing studios, an artistic director, music lessons… The fact that it is being cut back at state level, on every single level, it’s almost like a conspiracy.” 

Taylor is shaking her head. “Right?” she says. “Leaving only privileged people in charge of storytelling.” 

This political digression is unsurprising. Both women are titans in their respective fields and have always used their platforms to say something important. From protesting austerity to championing trans rights and supporting grassroots charities, Hesmondhalgh’s career reflects a dogged commitment to activism. The long-standing Big Issue supporter is a patron of Arts Emergency, co-founded political collective Take Back Theatre, and even voiced the 2019 Labour Manifesto audiobook. (She’s also found time to star in high-profile dramas like Broadchurch, Happy Valley and Mr Bates vs The Post Office). 

Meanwhile, Taylor-as-Self Esteem has become a powerful symbol of feminism and queer advocacy. Her music navigates the complexities of modern womanhood, from patriarchal beauty standards to sexual harassment. 

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Self Esteem’s 2021 single “I Do This All the Time”, for example, sees her speak-sing all the things men have said to her: “All you need to do, darling, is fit in that little dress of yours,” she deadpans, “If you weren’t doing this you’d be working in McDonald’s.”  

The pair – both Northerners from working-class backgrounds – met in 2015. Hesmondhalgh “hung around the merch store” after watching Taylor perform in her previous band, indie duo Slow Club. 

“I knew Rebecca was a Corrie fan,” Hesmondhalgh explains. “So I was, I was giving it the what-for [she pulls a face, like she’s looking around a crowded gig], hoping she’d come over.”  

“I lost my damn mind,” Taylor says. “I was just like ‘wow’. It was one of the best days of my life… your character [Hayley] was iconic. That character was very important to me.” 

They “instantly” hit it off – a fortuitous development. Slow Club split up in 2017, after 11 years together, and Taylor was struggling to forge a new solo identity. “Hypersexuality, booze and self-destruction” filled the ensuing years. Going to stay with Hesmondhalgh in Manchester helped her stay sane. 

“I just felt very alone at that time,” Taylor says, “and it was so hard to find like-minded people. It was very important meeting you, Julie. It’s a bit sycophantic, but I’m [always thinking] like, ‘What would you do?’ You’re just very inspiring to me.” 

It took a little while for things to take off; Self Esteem’s 2019 debut Compliments Please established her new brand of ambitious pop, but significant commercial success eluded her. 

Prioritise Pleasure changed everything. The 2021 album was critically lauded, earning Taylor Mercury Prize, Brit Award, Sky Arts and NME Award nominations, and securing ‘album of the year’ accolades from a suite of publications. It launched Taylor’s West End career – she starred as Sally Bowles in Cabaret – and earned her acting roles in various TV shows. But amid the dizzying heights of sudden success, Taylor felt artistically pigeonholed and wracked with self doubt.  

“If I was smart, after Prioritise Pleasure, I’d make quasi-empowerment advert music for like, a Dove advert. Make some brand deals,” she jokes. “But I couldn’t. The new album, I hope, sort of emancipates me from this idea that I’m this really binary, happy-with-myself woman that is going to empower you and make you feel like “Here Come the Girls” every day. A bit of me can, and a bit of me feels dreadful about all the things we all feel dreadful about.” 

“If Not Now, It’s Soon” – the song on the new Self Esteem album that features Hesmondhalgh – reflects such feelings of self doubt, and overcoming them. It’s based on the difficult post-Slow Club years, when she was “spiralling”, living in Margate and trying to work out her next steps: 

“When you just wanted to sing / You didn’t know what that would bring”, Taylor sings. Shortly after, Hesmondhalgh’s voice cuts in: “Something will happen because it’s got to / It’s not just perseverance we need, it’s patience.” 

“I mean, the whole album is about me giving up,” explains Taylor, sipping her tea. “And then it’s almost like, I need you to come in and tell me not to, on that song.” 

“It’s personal and political, because personally, you have to wait and one day you’ll get somewhere less painful. But the world will hopefully get somewhere less painful too.” 

‘Dark and dystopian times’

It’s now, by the way, that things start getting political. The kitchen-table-at-the-house-party chat has begun. 

“Originally, the bit [in “If Not Now, It’s Soon”] that Rebecca samples was a bit from an actual rally that I did back in 2017,” Hesmondhalgh says.  

“Things felt a bit cuspy, things felt like they could change. It was post-Brexit, but it was still kind of like, ‘Oh, actually, people are becoming politicised. People are actually using their voices.’” 

It was a time of volatility for the left. Brexit was a recent, painful decision – but disillusionment with austerity and centrism was prompting record youth engagement with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. A staggering 63% of 18- to 29-year-old electors voted for the party’s radical 2017 platform, endorsing social democratic policies such as free higher education and the renationalisation of key industries. This unprecedented turnout helped deny the Conservatives a majority at the 2017 election. 

For a moment, real change seemed possible: “Lots of young people were joining the Labour Party,” Hesmondhalgh recalls, “there was a sense, I suppose, of change, of possibility.” 

We all know what came next. Labour descended into infighting and accusations of antisemitism, and Boris Johnson swept into parliament on his “Get Brexit Done” slogan. Labour retreated to the centre, leaving activists to mourn a moment that had felt so full of promise. 

“When it came to actually making the album it was like, you can’t use that [sample from the rally] any more because that moment has passed,” Hesmondhalgh says. “We’ve gone into a darker, more dystopian time now.”  

The direction of the sample had to pivot, Taylor says. “We had this conversation about how it didn’t feel right any more. And then together, we sort of wrote what it is now.”  

We need plenty of patience and perseverance in modern Britain.  

“Because of old membership, I get the Labour Party’s Facebook posts,” Hesmondhalgh says. “God knows who’s in charge of PR. They’re pretend WhatsApp conversations, like” – she pauses, puts on a deeper voice – ‘Hey, did you know? That the Labour Party has managed to deport 19,000 people in the last week?’” 

“And then some people are commenting, ‘You’re lying, vote Reform’ underneath. And the other half of the people are saying ‘How is this OK? How are you the Labour Party? This is not what I voted for, I will never vote for you again.’ So on every single level it’s not working as a policy.” 

“It’s lose, lose, lose, lose, lose,” says Taylor.  

“That’s what happens when you try and mould yourself into some sort of populist ideal. And the disability cut [Labour’s £6 billion cut to welfare payments, announced last month] the heating allowance – all of it is just really depressing. 

“But I will not be depressed, because there’s a whole swathe of young people that are coming up and taking matters into their own hands.”  

Things can change for the better – same-sex marriage, she points out, was illegal a little over a decade ago. 

“Life is this long thing,” Taylor adds. “And I’m trying to be like – if we stay, if we fight, if we try, surely something will come back.” 

Why the arts still matter  

What does activism look like right now? Well, the usual: marching, letter-writing, volunteering – but also, taking stock, finding solace in community. And that’s where the arts come in. 

Engagement in art makes people more altruistic, a growing body of research shows: according to a 2017 study, people who “embrace the arts” are statistically more likely to help others by giving to charity or volunteering. A 2019 Arts Council England report found that 68% of participants felt arts events strengthened community spirit. 

But the benefits of the arts cannot be wholly captured in statistical analysis. They are, however, self evident to anyone who has ever seen a killer live show.  

“It was one of my favourite gigs ever in my life,” Hesmondhalgh says, describing watching Self Esteem
perform. Taylor looks pleased, and maybe slightly embarrassed.  

“I went on my own, my mate had Covid. I was right at the front. This group of 20-something year-old women completely adopted me. They had no idea who I were, it wasn’t like that, we were just sort of singing our hearts out at the front, weeping. That’s what it’s about, that feeling of community, of sisterhood, and I mean sisterhood in an inclusive sense. 

“I feel like that’s what you’ve created, Rebecca.” 

“That’s what I needed, though!” Taylor says. “Everything about my career until I was Self Esteem was so exclusionary – music has always felt so exclusionary, and being a woman has felt exclusionary. Now, I enjoy it too, I really feel it too, when I’m up there.” 

It’s this kind of community – found on the dance floor, or in the audience – that the pair hope will see us through “dark and dystopian times”.  

“[The idea of “If Not Now, Then Soon”] is like, OK, what now? and this idea of patience about waiting it out, working always, working together towards a common goal,” Hesmondhalgh explains.  

“That’s what we’re feeling in Self Esteem gigs, you know, this feeling of togetherness. It’s togetherness… You just have to keep banging the drum. Or else people will get away
with everything.” 

Self Esteem’s new album A Complicated Woman is out now, via Polydor Records. She will tour in September / October. Julie Hesmondhalgh will perform in Punch at the Apollo Theatre, London, from September. 

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