A Conversation With VICTORIA WOOD: New TV drama, ‘Loving Miss Hatto’

Edward Seckerson

In 2007 Gramophone magazine uncovered an extraordinary fraud that rocked the classical music industry. Concert pianist Joyce Hatto – a little-known artist of moderate talent – was suddenly the name on everyone’s lips when a series of recordings (some 100 of them) flooded the market winning plaudits in the press and on BBC Radio 3 where one of them was selected as “Best in Catalogue” in a comparative review on CD Review’s popular “Building a Library” feature. The only problem was that these weren’t Hatto’s recordings at all but those of other established pianists whose recordings had been pilfered and even digitally “enhanced” by her husband and greatest champion Barrington Coupe. Hatto was dying of cancer and Coupe wanted to create a legacy for her that would far exceed anything that would she would have been capable of in life. The fraud was only discovered when an American journalist put one of her CDs into Itunes and the read-out revealed another artist altogether.

Now the story has been dramatised for television in a BBC film entitled Loving Miss Hatto written for the screen by Victoria Wood and starring Francesca Annis and Alfred Molina. In this exclusive audio podcast for Sinfini Music Victoria Wood talks to Edward Seckerson about the project which she so exhaustively researched to bring to dramatic fruition. It’s a fascinating insight into the working process of a seasoned writer. Wood talks, too, about her own musical beginnings and enduring musical passions.

Originally published: 16th December 2012.

Loving Miss Hatto is a Left Bank Pictures production for the BBC

This podcast was originally created on behalf of Sinfini Music .