Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedian and writer, one of the most successful stand-ups in British comedy, known for Netflix specials and the sitcom 'The Duchess'.
On the island
Eight records
Spice Up Your LifeFavourite
I love Spice Up Your Life. The opening really got me going and made me feel powerful.
I was really drawn to rap music... The Real Slim Shady by Eminem changed my life. I just thought, hang on, this is funny. I just wanted everything to be powerful and funny, and he was it for me.
My mother loved Madonna, looked like Madonna, danced like Madonna, sang like Madonna. She even played Evita in the self titled musical in our local town. And I remember her singing and dancing in the kitchen to La Isla Bonita.
And the song Soul One is emblematic of all of the early romances that I started to have at that time.
I love Taylor Swift and I even got to very briefly meet her at the NME Awards. She said I was amazing and that is my claim to fame... And at any age, you can be reminded of how beautiful it was to be 22.
It reminds me of times that I was really insecure and ambling around London... this song reminds me of London and being new in London.
And my now-husband Bobby was my high school boyfriend. And this is one of the first songs that we listened to. And then when we reconnected 20 years later, he put this song on... I just remembered all these wonderful things that I loved about my teenage sweetheart.
This song goes back to my relationship with my daughter and it is 16 Shots by Steflon Don because I think it's powerful and she warns anyone against speaking ill of her own mother.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:42Why is it important to you to share a lot about your personal life in your routines?
I like secrets. I love the kinds of people who leapfrog the small talk and tell me all about, you know, their dead father. That's the first conversation that I want to have with someone. Nice to meet you. What medication are you on? I just love that transparency. That makes me feel special and it makes me feel like I have a connection with them. So I try to be that way. I just try to share everything because I want to connect with people and be vulnerable. And that's really just my language of love.
Presenter asks
0:42How did your on-stage look come together?
Well, I always valued glamour. My grandmother was really glamorous. She drove a Cadillac and wore red leather gloves. And that was the best thing that you could be was pretty. And that trickled down to my mother, who's also very glamorous. So from just a natural perspective, I think it's polite to be invited into someone's living room looking your best. Or if people are paying a babysitter and they're paying for parking, coming out on a Saturday night, then you should be the best dressed person in the room. But then when I started doing comedy, there was a bit of pushback where early on in the noughties, people, bookers, men, I guess, would say, oh, you mustn't dress up because the men will fancy you, they won't listen to you, and the women will be angry, they'll be jealous of you. And you have to make yourself invisible so they listen to your jokes. So you should just wear a hoodie. And I thought that was a bit downtrodden for what I had my sight set on. I suppose I was dressing for the job I wanted, not the job I had. So it was a little bit of rebellion. It was certainly rebellion. I decided to go all out and be basically, I joke that it's drag. Drag culture very much celebrates big, bold, brave, feminine culture. And I think that's what stand-ups do too. It's like, you don't like me being a woman, then I'm going to be such a woman.
The keepsakes
The book
Julia Donaldson
I think that I would take a children's book. As silly as that is, I would want something to remind me of my children. And I think I would like to look at pictures and read something soothing like The Highway Rat. Oh, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Yeah.
The luxury
skincare set and a wide-brimmed hat
I think skincare is really important. It's a very obvious luxury item, but I am far too Celtic to be in that hot sun all day. And I think I would need a very beautiful wide-brimmed hat. I would need SPF, like an unlimited supply of 50 SPF for sure. And I would like to exfoliate. You know, I still need retinol. And that's not, I know that no one can see me anymore, but the last thing you want to feel is parched.
Presenter asks
5:07Tell me about your hometown. Was it fertile ground for comedy to be planted in?
I think it was because I don't feel that comedians are born from just comfort and being really pleased with everything around them. You need to be shaken up a bit to want to choose such a rebellious path. I think that it's not such a small town, but it's a very small-minded town in the way that there's one industry, and that's a petrochemical industry that I feel must be dangerous, but everyone assures me is not. And everyone's parents work there, and I had lovely parents. I think I had a lovely childhood, but I felt very trapped in that town from a young age.
Presenter asks
9:17How do you look back on your parents' relationship now?
My mom was very beautiful and very small and she was very talented and had everything to be an actress or a singer if she wanted to. She has so many talents. She's really funny as well. But she felt chained to what society was dictating that she should do with her life, which is get married and have three kids in your 20s. I knew very early on that my mom and my grandma were frustrated and that they didn't reach the full potential of so this is Dorothy, her mom. Yeah. Your mom's mom. She was an important figure in your life. Yeah, my mom's mom, Dorothy, was really funny too. And neither one of them had really reached their full potential. And I didn't want to be chained to duties of a woman myself the way I'd watched them be.
Presenter asks
22:50What made you decide to speak out about confronting a male comic during a TV recording?
I got a lot of pushback. Like, why won't you say who it is? It's because that everyone knows who it is. What they're asking me for is the women's names, and that's what I won't give. And that's why I'm reluctant to say that. Well, it's, you know, there are a few women's names that I think investigators are looking for, and that's what they're asking me for. No one's asking me for his name. So it's funny how people go straight to accusing, you know, like, why you're the problem. You won't give his name. And it's like, we're not the problem. I had a choice. I could go to work with someone whom I believe to be a perpetrator of sexual assault, or I could turn down the job. Those were my options. And so I wrestled with that. I thought, well, what am I meant to do in this instance? Am I meant to go and like be near someone that I think these things about? To be clear, it's not someone who assaulted you. It's someone that you're not. No, no, I have never been assaulted. The choice is, do I go to work with someone who I think is very problematic? And do I stand near them and laugh and smile and look like I am allowing this kind of person to still be on television? Or do I stay home? And that was really difficult for me. That's what I wrestled with the most because I believe that this person was or is dangerous, but also, like, what am I going to change if I stay home? And so I decided: my compromise was: all right, I'm going to go, but I'm going to let him know under no uncertain terms what I think of him. I'm not going to just smile and look like I'm allowing this behavior. I'm not going to let him think that I don't know and that everybody he works with is just going to let him get away with it. So, that is the attitude that I took into the show, and did I do the right thing or the wrong thing? I still don't know, but I just felt like, why should I stay home? Like, he should stay home. But if he's gonna be there, I'm gonna be there. And I'm gonna tell him what I think.
“I like secrets. I love the kinds of people who leapfrog the small talk and tell me all about, you know, their dead father.”
“I decided to go all out and be basically, I joke that it's drag.”
“I felt very trapped in that town from a young age.”
“I didn't want to be chained to duties of a woman myself the way I'd watched them be.”
“I just thought, wouldn't it be funny to spend the night together? I really just did it for the punchline.”