Multi comedy award-winner Lucy Beaumont talks about her hotly anticipated debut show, We Can Twerk It Out

It was when I was working as a cleaner at Hull University, from where I’d graduated a few years before, that I decided I wanted to pursue a career in comedy. Funny things kept happening to me; the banter from the other women I was cleaning with was amazing and then a crow landed on my head.

There was so much I could talk about and turn in to gags, tie together and then tell on stage. Without giving away too much about my new stand-up show We Can Twerk It Out, it’s based on the journey I’ve taken, starting on the north east cost to where I live now, in London. There’s a big reveal at the end too.

I was born and raised in Hull, which is where a lot of my material is drawn from. Hull’s got a reputation for being a tough city as it was built on fishing. It meant there were fleets of trawlers going out and young men who never returned. People think of Hull as a city that has struggled, and deservedly so, but it also means that it’s a warm city with a sense of humour, the key survival traits needed during this period and the post 1970s when the industry was decimated.

When I was living in Hull a few years ago the comedy scene was basically non-existent while in London there was comedy going on every night, which is why I made the move, and it was a big change of scene.

Since winning the BBC New Comedy award in 2012 things have been going really well; We Can Twerk It Out was the first full hour I performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year and it was nominated as one of the best newcomer shows which was great.

I am also currently writing and developing my radio pilot To Hull And Back into a BBC Radio 4 series which will star the brilliant Maureen Lipman and Norman Lovett, and will be broadcast in October, which I’m really looking forward to.

As for Hull, I try to go back and visit as much as possible. It took years to rebuild and used to feel like 20 years behind other major cities, but there’s so much going on now, more now than ever in the build-up to the City of Culture in 2017. I know I’m biased but it really is worth a trip.

Lucy Beaumont We Can Twerk It Out comes to Didcot’s Cornerstone on June 19.

Box office 01235 515144 or www.cornerstone-arts.org