Willan was born and grew up in Bolton, and spent time in care as a child, as her mother was a heroin addict. She later worked as an escort, and sex work was chronicled in her stand-up show Branded.
Comedy
Willan's stand up takes inspiration from her unusual life experiences. In 2015 she won the Magners New Comedian of the Year award. In 2016 she took her debut stand up show On Record, based on her experiences of growing up in and out of the care system, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A nationwide tour followed in 2017, including 10 dates at London's Soho Theatre and a commission to adapt the show into a BBC Radio 4 series, with a second series being greenlit. Willan's second show Branded was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017, receiving a HeraldAngel Award and a nomination for Best Show.
Television
Willan is the narrator of Channel 4’s The Circle and joined the cast of Still Open All Hours and Click & Collect. She played Carol in Series 4 of sketch showClass Dismissed and has performed comedy on Live from The Comedy Store and The Last Leg Correspondents. She has also been nominated as a ChortleBest Newcomer, honoured on the BBC New Talent Hot List and became the first recipient of the BBC’s Caroline Aherne Comedy Bursary. She was a South Bank Sky Arts Award Best Breakthrough Nominee in 2018. In 2020 Willan's sitcom Alma's Not Normal was commissioned for a full series by BBC Two, following the success of the pilot. The Mirror called it ‘Phoenix Nights meets Fleabag, guided by the spirit of Victoria Wood’; The Times said, ‘Willan's writing is skilled and clearly very personal...uplifting and strangely enchanting’. The full series is due be released in 2021.
Care Work
In 2015 Willan secured funding of over £100k to create the multi-platform literary project Stories of Care, creating and curating short stories written by fellow care leavers. The project recruited Care Leavers across the North West to take part in the creation of published children's anthology for looked-after children.
