Sally Phillips | Wycombe Senior

After leaving Wycombe in 1989, Sally went on to gain a First in Italian from Oxford, and then wasted no time in securing her place in the world of media; she made her television debut on the Fist of Fun Show in 1995, only a year after leaving University, and shortly afterwards in 1997 became a recognised face in television as Sophie in I’m Alan Partridge.  Following this, Sally co-created Smack the Pony, a double Emmy Award winning comedy show which took the public by storm. As Shazzer in Bridget Jones’ Diary in 2001 and Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason in 2004, and with a principal role in Rescue Me in 2002, Sally made it into people’s video cupboards, firmly establishing herself as a household name. She has recently made her professional stage debut as Gwendolyn in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, though Wycombe pupils in 1988 had already witnessed her early stage appearance as Anita in Westside Story, clearly a crucial introduction to her acting career! However, Sally is not only remembered for her acting talent…

The staff remember…

One of a memorable and starry group, Sally had the distinction of being the only non-A level English student ever to produce the critical and creative work required to earn a place in ‘Lit. Soc.’ She joined, with infectious enthusiasm, in our frequent theatre trips and joint meetings with the prestigious Eton Praed Society, during which aspiring Wycombe Abbey poets demonstrated their culinary, if not creative, superiority to their Eton counterparts!

A sparkling Anita in Westside Story, a solo flautist in the School Orchestra and a highly able linguist who won a place at Oxford to read Italian and Linguistics, Sally’s exceptional talents were very evident. Most striking, though, were her modesty, charm and huge sense of fun.

I taught Sally for Latin up to O level. She was in Division 1, not one of the classical scholars but quick thinking and acute. We studied Book V of Virgil’s Aeneid for O level in Sally’s year and she certainly had more time for Latin literature than for grammar drill. However, what she really enjoyed was the class situation. I used to linger over the similes, trying to extract every point on which an examiner might conceivably ask a question. Sally soon picked up the style and began to take it to extremes. What was it she said about that gold and blue snake at the tomb of Anchises? It made all of us giggle. She was good fun - bright and bobbish and subtlely iconoclastic. And perhaps all those years of conjugating and declining helped a bit with her Italian and Linguistics degree.

I can picture Sally running down the wing in her purple house colour, and again for my U15 XII. We had some laughs then, I remember, and as I look back I can see the seeds of her successful acting career already planted in those whacky Campbell Early Bed plays.

J Martindale, PE Department

Sally Phillips, like another master of comedy, Woody Allen, is a clarinettist, passing her Grade VIII at Wycombe Abbey. I was her accompanist and I remember the enlivening effect of her personality during a rehearsal one dark, melancholy Sunday afternoon. What struck me was the expressiveness of her face and her manner. She was friendly yet guarded, warm and cool at the same time, polite and business-like but with a roguishness and latent contemptuousness behind the eyes. These laughing, mocking eyes were wonderfully in evidence when she played a receptionist opposite Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge in the well known T.V. series. She was corpsing, something that would not have been allowed at Wycombe Abbey in those austere days.

H Petter, Music Department