Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Comedian and writer; stand-up comic on QI and Taskmaster; her novel 'Weirdo' won Gilly Cooper Prize.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
The book
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:33That idea of kind of manipulating the room, playing the room, feeling that energy — tell me about that.
Well the word manipulation I don't think I would use now … actually I do think it's about communication. The audience make at least fifty percent of the show … you come out as a comic, and I guess you make some offers, like this, this, this, and you sort of suggest a tone, and the audience meet you, or they add, or they go, no, no, no, we're too polite for that … and then together you make something, and that's how it feels.
Presenter asks
3:53What was it like for you writing to silence as a being in a room on your own without that feedback from the audience?
The way you heckle yourself in your own brain when you are trying to write something is so much worse. And it's so loud when there's, as you say, in the silence, because every single sentence there is a critic in your brain going, who cares? And this is so bad. And you have to go, yes, but I'm still going to finish it and I'm going to make write a bit more and then I'm going to edit it and make it better.
Presenter asks
7:42So your mum was nineteen when she had you. What impact did that have on you and your sisters having a mum who was closer to you in age, lots of energy, but also figuring her life out?
George Orwell
Because it stands a reread. There's a lot going on in that book. But I also think it's a book that might make you feel grateful to be away from civilisation.
The luxury
I think I'll take a typewriter because I think as long as I don't get sand in the works, I would love to be able to write some things with complete absence of audience, not for anyone else but for myself. Some terrible poems that I read to the sea, really enjoying my sort of non-computer generated life. No screens, but just tip, tap, tap, tap, tap, still enjoying words and saying things and writing up about my feelings.
I didn't realize my mum was young until probably I was 16 and she was 36. I had my first baby at 40, whereas I was 20 when my mum was 40 … my dad … was never going to be able to support us or contribute financially. So it was all on my mum … All three of us. They got married after my sister Cheryl and then they were already broken up by the time they had Christina. So my mum really was by herself when she had two of us and a baby. She did evening courses and she started working in administration and the health service and then she worked her way up. And now my mum has a PhD … she has clawed her way to financial stability.
Presenter asks
9:19[Your mum] tried to lock you in, didn't she?
She did lock us in. She would hide the keys. We weren't allowed door keys at this point … She locked the windows, we just broke it. We broke a window really high in the bathroom that she didn't know about and there was a ladder in the back garden … to get back in [we] put the ladder up against the house and we'd just wait for her to go to sleep or we'd sometimes get home and wake her up because we'd have to fall into the bath from this sort of high window.
Presenter asks
12:01You told me your mum and dad split when you were still quite young. Tell me a bit more about your dad now — he eventually remarried and moved to Australia. How much do you remember about when he was part of your ordinary family?
We were definitely really glad that my parents broke up. And I think it's really important to say that because when your parents are unhappy and they make a decision to make themselves happier … I remember we were just relieved … I think what we had was very common is that we saw our dad every two weeks at a weekend and we would go bowling or to Canvey Island and play the arcade games and things like that. And I think my dad definitely got to do all the fun stuff with us and my mum did all the boring stuff, which was really hard.
Presenter asks
14:22[Your dad] gave you any advice about following your creative passions?
There's something that my mum really hates, but … when I finished university I told him … that I was going to do a teacher training thing so that I could do supply teaching … and he said, don't have a backup. It basically said, make it work or starve to death. Essentially, he said, you have to make it work if you've got no choice.
“I think it's really important to say that because when your parents are unhappy and they make a decision to make themselves happier, I think parents really worry about things like what the effect be on their children. I remember we were just relieved.”
“I used to have a joke about how jazz reminded me about being neglected. And that is a joke. It was a joke I used to have, but it's also true. My dad … [he] covered [the coat cupboard] with carpet underlay to soundproof it and then would lock himself in there playing the saxophone.”
“My parents were really young. For the first eighteen months it was just me. They didn't know what they were doing, but I had all of their attention and I really did believe everyone should look at me. And I do just think it gave me this little rock-solid core of like an entire room booing and I'd be like, I deserve to be here.”
“I am the kind of person who will get on a tube to a place they haven't been to before and try. And if I have any kind of career now, it's because I've done that lots of times.”
“I had a Facebook message from someone who went to my school saying, can you stop going on my favourite programmes and ruining them? So that's what happens. The people who don't like you at school will probably never learn to love you. And letting go of that, I think, is the journey.”