Who did you look up to when you were first starting out? I hadn’t really watched any standup before doing it, so I had no knowledge of comedy. Once I started doing standup, the people I loved were Josie Long, Bridget Christie, Stewart Lee and then my peers like James Acaster and Josh Widdicombe. Can you remember a concert so bad, it’s now funny? I did stand up for Hugh Grant’s birthday about seven years ago. They had booked me as a stunt and wanted me to do feminist standup to spoil his birthday. It worked out okay for me, I survived it and my career is fine. But at that moment I had to interrupt the party of people I recognized and do standup to Hugh Grant. I had to do half an hour. It’s been so long. I remember David Baddiel being there, who I had never met, and Max Mosley and Charlotte Church. It was a beautiful list. Your current show is called Success Story. What can audiences expect? Name, personal stories and anecdotes – what I always do. I try not to share too much because I’m a mom now and I know my stuff will be online when my son is in school, has a job, and is a grown man. Nothing too serious, but I’m talking about conception during IVF. There is also a lot about the 90s. I didn’t realize I would become a nostalgic comedian. “I hate being asked about being a woman. I no longer have a funny or interesting answer” … Sara Pascoe. Photograph: Rachel Sherlock Better riot? Hobbyists are generally not very good at their jobs. They are usually drunk and either insulting you or have misunderstood what you said. Never the less this very wise man from Dundee saw absolutely what I was trying to do and helped me with funny consequences. What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given? I’ve had a lot of older comics say, “You shouldn’t do this kind of comedy, you should do it like this, you should get a male writer.” Things like this are the worst. As a woman you are often told not to talk about sex because the public is not comfortable with it. I was told not to wear skirts on stage. This was before Katherine Ryan and Andi Osho, very bright people, proved it could be done: you can be hysterical and wear a nice dress. Any comedy? I hate being asked about being a woman. But it’s more because I don’t have a funny or interesting answer anymore. I think the conversation has really evolved. As a middle-class, well-paid white woman at the level I am, I’m not really qualified to talk about women in comedy anymore. You have written two books on issues surrounding sexuality, power and the female body. What role has feminism played in your career? When I first started doing standup, I didn’t think of myself as a feminist, but early on in standup I was called a feminist comedian. At the time, I was looking at my routines and talking about getting on the bus, being in Tesco, wearing a bra, and then I thought, ‘Oh, it’s just because I’m a woman that I’m talking about these things’. It’s a really visible part of you that you don’t think you’re expressing, but the fact that you’re there means you are. I’m never a man on the bus, I’m a woman on the bus and so I realized that and started writing more and thinking a lot more about it. I didn’t really identify as a woman that strongly until I started doing standup and people kept telling me I was a woman. I really felt like a person, until I was in the minority in a job where I would go to concerts and people would say, “Oh, it’s nice to have a woman on the bill.” What a strange greeting when you walk into a room when you just think you’re human. Where do you stand on the feminist label you are still given? Wikipedia calls me “feminist vegan” and that’s very often my introduction to panel shows. The reason I struggle is that I don’t have any jokes about these things because they’re not things I necessarily joke about. Whereas if they just said, “she’s a crazy Essex girl,” I’d feel safe that we’re in a realm of things we joke about. I have this concern that being a feminist will put some people off my comedy – which isn’t hectoring, which isn’t manhating – and really the problem is a misunderstanding of what feminism is. It’s weird because it’s like someone saying, “This person is not racist” on their resume. In fact, most people think the sexes are equal, so why does it need a capital F at the beginning of it? Why is this a descriptive term? What’s it like being an unusual Essex girl in comedy? It’s fantastic because people expect very little from you, there are a lot of stereotypes to break, and you’re also still having a lot of fun. We are a great laugh. What’s one important lesson you’ve learned from being a standup? That you’re only as good as your last gig. There is something wonderful about that because you always start over. You write the best jokes of your life, you put on the best show, and you have to start all over again. You can never say, “Wait guys, I did that two years ago, let’s laugh about it again.” What is the best advice you have been given? My dad is a jazz musician who lives in Australia. I told him that after university I would do a PGCE because I needed to get a teaching degree to be able to pay my rent. He said, “Don’t do a teaching degree. Make it work or starve.” Essentially he said, if you have a backup plan, you’re much less likely to be able to do what you want to do. I didn’t think it was necessarily good advice at the time, and my mom hated it.
