When Candace Bushnell was in her 20s and living in New York, she wrote a newspaper column about the lives of her and her best friends that you may just have heard of — it was called “Sex and the City.”
Now 26-years, a beloved HBO series, and two movies later, Sex and the City is adored by millions around the world and is considered to be one of the most important recent contributions to modern American popular culture.
Later this month Candace will be swapping cosmopolitans for pints of bitter as she trades in the glamour of New York City for a night in York; to perform her one-woman show True Tales of Sex, Success and Sex and the City, at the Grand Opera House.
We caught up with Candace to grab a quick word, so you’ll know a little of what to expect from the big show.
Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with us Candace, will next month’s show be your first visit to York?
Yes, it is! I’m looking forward to it, I did look around the UK last February, but I didn’t make it to York.
So, if “Sex and the City” had been based in our York rather than New York do you think it would have been a different type of story?
Well, it probably would have ended up being somewhat similar, because when I first started writing “Sex and the City” we wanted to write about things and people that we thought could happen in New York and could only be in New York, but we realised pretty quickly that we were wrong. There are these types of people everywhere, so there’s definitely a Mr. Big of York, right? You probably know who he is!
There’s probably a Samantha, a Miranda, a Charlotte and a Carrie of York too.
[If the show was set in York] We’d be in very different places of course. Instead, we’d maybe go to the pub, and maybe not a nightclub.
What’s the one thing you miss the most about that period of your life, when you were living in New York and writing “Sex and the City?”
Well, I still live in New York, and I still go out so in, in a lot of ways, my life is very similar!
I guess what a lot of people miss is the days of no social media and no cell phones. There was just a certain freedom to it.
Even though “Sex and the City” is now over 25-years old, it’s still seen as an empowering story for millions of women around the world, is that something you’re really proud of?
I think for me; it’s one of the most rewarding aspects of “Sex and the City”. So many women come up to me and say that “Sex and the City” gave them a different way to think about their lives. So that’s absolutely fantastic.
My advice to women has always been to be your own, Mr. Big. To be, you know, independent in both mind and body, and that seems to be something that is catching on more and more.
So, the show “True Tales of Sex, Success and Sex and the City” takes place at Grand Opera House York on the 11th of March, but what should our readers expect?
Well, it’s really the origin story of “Sex and the City.”
It’s how I wrote “Sex and the City,” how hard I worked to get there, why I invented Carrie Bradshaw, and what happened to me afterward.
People come with their girlfriends, they wear the shoes, and we also play a little game called “Real or Not Real” because there’s so many things that happened on the TV show that also happened in my real life.
I mean, the show really goes through my life right up through menopause and some of the new kinds of guys that we can expect to date today — when you’re older! Of course, it is 25 or 30 years after I first started writing “Sex and the City.” So, there are some different types of guys out there…
Will there be any stories we’ve never heard before?
There’s the story of the real Mr Big!
These are all my own stories and usually people end up inspired. That’s what I’ve gotten really the most from the audience is, is that women feel really inspired.
[After briefly explaining to Candace what the British concept of a meal deal is] Final question, what your go-to sandwich, snack, and drink?
Nice and simple; my favourite sandwich is probably ham and cheese, I feel like when I was when I was in the UK last time, I ate a lot of that because we stopped at gas stations.
Then a cup of coffee and I guess maybe some chips [she means crisps we think].
Candace Bushnell will bring her one-woman show, “True Tales of Sex, Success and Sex and the City” to the Grand Opera House in York on 11 March. Tickets are available now from tegeurope.com.
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