Standing-up for funny women

It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve given birth twice. Making my stand-up comedy debut in front of a live audience last week was no joke.

Just before I went on stage, my mouth was as dry as an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and I could barely remember my name, let alone my opening gag.

Luckily, my eight-minute routine at The Cock Inn in Combe seemed to go down well – I wasn’t booed off stage and notched up quite a few laughs.

But the experience left me with even more respect for the stand-ups who go out and do it night after night in clubs and bars all over the country.

Better still, for those brief moments on stage, I joined one of the coolest and most exclusive clubs around at the moment – that of the female standup.

The past 18 months has seen a near explosion of funny women taking over radios, TV screens and clubs.

Seriously, just think Sarah Millican, Jo Caulfield, Lucy Porter, Shappi Khorsandi, Sarah Silverman, Josie Long and of course, Gina Yashere.

These women have grabbed the funny-girl baton handed on by the likes of Victoria Wood, French & Saunders and Jo Brand and are off and running.

I was lucky enough to be coached by Oxford-based professional comedy writer Richard O Smith, who also wrote all my gags.

Richard has dreamed up jokes, sketches and scripts for the likes of Dara O’Briain, Hugh Dennis, BBC2 TV show Science Club and R4’s The News Quiz.

He’s worked with a number of female stand-ups including Lucy Porter, Holly Walsh, Nina Conti and Laura Solon and says the aim is the same, whether he’s writing for men or women, which is to make people giggle. In other words, if the gag’s funny and well delivered, people will laugh.

There are topics that only women stand ups can tackle, he believes.

He pointed out: “Very few male comics would dare or possess enough courage to take on women’s issues, so women have quite a monopoly.”

A rising name on the national standup circuit is Witney-born Iszi Lawrence.

The 28-year-old former pupil of Wychwood School in Banbury Road launched her career in 2008 and after cutting her comedy teeth at local events including Wychwood Festival and Oxfringe, now performs all over the country but can still be spotted compering comedy nights at Fat Lil’s in Witney.

She said: “There is still an attitude on the standup circuit that they should only have one woman on the comedy bill on any night because we all talk about the same things’. And audiences don’t really know what to expect when we come on, although that’s not necessarily a negative thing as it can work well in terms of laughs.

“There are a lot of female stand-ups out there now but not many of them get booked as the headline act, the exception being Sarah Millican. It’s easier for a young, beautiful female standup to get noticed and put on telly than it is to be the headline act on the comedy club circuit.

“The best thing about TV is it gives female comics access to the audiences out there.”

She’s encountered more than a few hecklers in her time, ranging from jibes about her being fat (she is extremely slim) and ‘Iron my shirt’ or ‘Make me a sandwich’ yelled at her, through to rape and even death threats.

She points out that women headlined in the old music hall clubs in the good old days and no one thought it was odd.

“Women have always been funny – I laugh so much when I am with a group of my girlfriends,” she said. “And the beauty of comedy is that you can be as ugly or as old as you like, with standup it doesn’t matter.”

I wasn’t sure whether I’d be going out there and doing the standup thing again but Iszi Lawrence’s parting words have changed my mind.

She added: “Hey, the worst thing that can happen is that a group of strangers doesn’t find you funny. Big deal.”

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Rebecca Moore: 'My metaphorical character takes a sip of gin'

I’m perching on a barstool in a pub called The Cock Inn, looking down while pinching the bridge of my nose to relieve the throbbing terror of my own mind.

Richard Smith – a BBC comedy writer – is warming up the crowd because in 10 short seconds, I will walk the three metre distance to the front and then spend the next twelve minutes trying to make these people laugh. I feel like I’m in the film, Ghost – my soul is abandoning my body for the heavens: everything is suddenly very light and very hazy. Richard begins my cue line and even as I become conscious that my right and left leg have synchronised to propel me forward, I wonder where the hell they think they’re going.

But let’s rewind: what madness would inspire a reasonably sane woman to volunteer as a stand-up comic when I’m actually guilty of declaring that woman aren’t as funny as men? Well, there are two reasons: the first is that I’m an idiot. The second is that somebody dared me to do it and I may be many things but I’m no coward. Or at least I’m not a coward when anybody’s watching and egging me on. Besides, Richard is a comedy genius – a writer for the best of British comedy, no less, so when dared to let him pen me a script, work with him on the edit of it and then perform it in front of a live audience, I gulped and nodded agreement. Besides, I’m not the only idiot – Gill Oliver has agreed to do it too. That’s sisterhood.

At first, Richard wanted to know the most intimate details of my life and – since I apparently have no shame – he discovered my most excruciating secrets. He grinned like a snake spying a rodent: his eyes glazed over with glee and I could see that my most embarrassing tales were being forged into nuggets of comedy gold. He writes Gill and myself draft scripts and a few weeks later we reconvene to edit the material. I leave this meeting optimistic: the material’s good and at the safe distance of over a month away, it feels unreal. I decide that no friends and certainly no boyfriend will accompany me on the big night – this I must do alone.

Weeks later, the three of us meet around a huge office table and realise we have precisely seven days until performance.

I’m the most nervous I’ve ever been in my entire life. Ever.

I haven’t learnt my lines. I haven’t even started to learn my lines. I am going to die. In front of a live audience.

Nevertheless, we push on: Gill knows all her lines, I notice. She barely had to glance at her script: I barely glanced up from mine. But I can feel myself becoming my ‘stage’ character. Luckily, because a lot of the comedy comes vaguely from my own life I can be an exaggerated version of myself. Gill is encouraging too: ‘You’re a natural – I really believe that these ridiculous, embarrassing and cringe-worthy stories are your own…’.

Richard warns us that we’ll get more nervous as the night draws nearer until we’ll reach breaking point where we’d rather go over the top in the First World War than get up on stage. And he’s our guru.

As I reluctantly march to the front, my audience fall silent and it dawns on me for the first time that making a pack of people laugh is nearly impossible. And so I begin.

At first I get only a few laughs and a sense of foreboding. Then, after maybe 20 seconds, I get a good laugh – a real one. I relax a bit: my stage character wiggles into her metaphorical dress and takes a sip of her gin. And then, unbelievably, it’s all over – the audience may not be on their feet, but they are applauding loudly and tittering over my final gag. As my last line left my mouth I breathed properly for the first time all day. They’d really laughed – I even saw one of them slap his thigh. This is a good feeling – a great feeling. It’s worth the terror. Worth the supreme panic and the frantic line cramming. I could get used to this…

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Fancy a go?

*The Cotswold Comedy Club (cotswoldcomedy club.com) is run by blokes but female-friendly, with plenty of women booked for stand-ups at gigs. As they hold open-mic nights reguarly, this could be a good option. Venues include The Theatre in Chipping Norton,The Sun Inn, Hook Norton and The Rye Hill Golf Club at Milcombe, near Banbury.

*Also worth checking out is What The Frock! (whatthefrockcomedy.co.uk) started by journalist Jane Duffus to promote female stand-ups. It kicked-off in Bristol but has proved such a howling success, it’s spread to the rest of the country. WTF has been profiled on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and staged a show during the Women of the World Festival at London’s Southbank Centre last year. Aspiring female comics should send in footage, or ask to audition.

*Former media planner Vanessa Rigg and pal Keyna Doran are the duo behind Creative Cows Comedy Clubs, which holds gigs around the Cotswolds (creative-cows.com).
Keyna, who worked in property management for years, says comedy came to her late in life and largely by accident.
“For the first time I have found a career where being talkative and foolish is positively encouraged – it may have taken me 35 years to find but it was definitely worth the wait.”