Early in the summer of 2019, only weeks before a documentary about her was due to go live on the BBC, Kate Nash found herself in a state of total panic. Five years in the making, when the recording had originally kicked off for Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl, its producers had planned to make a film capturing Nash’s life as she knew it then: a late 20-something singer – known to most for her chart-topping, era- defining 2007 debut album Made of Bricks – continuing to carve out a career for herself out of the spotlight as an independent recording artist.
There’d be struggles, yes: going it alone in the industry is a relentless hustle. But nine months into filming, Nash’s world unravelled in ways she could never have predicted. Work was already stalling; music execs were uninterested in both her own punk-rock offerings and the more commercial pop lyrics she was attempting to sell. Then she discovered her money was gone; her manager had been misappropriating – or at least misspending – it. A lengthy legal battle ensued and Nash was forced to move back home to north London with her parents unable to make rent, flogging her belongings for survival. Although talk of her personal life and mental health went mostly unspoken in documentary’s final cut, it’s clear to see she was quite seriously struggling.
