Sarah Millican--The Queen of Comedy

by Tina Campanella

  On stage, Sarah was impressive.

  But she was narrowly beaten by Debra Jane Appelby, a no-nonsense Yorkshire lass who went on to appear in the BBC’s 28 Acts in 28 Minutes and Paramount Comedy’s The World Stands Up. She’s also appeared numerous times on Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and has forged a successful career on the UK comedy circuit.

  Sarah must have been disappointed to get so close and come second instead of first. But she must have also felt immensely proud of her achievements. Mere months before, she had performed her first five-minute set and now she had come second in a national competition.

  Debra-Jane’s award proved to be controversial. After the ceremony, it was discovered that she had in fact been born a man, which could have disqualified her from the event. A number of people queried her win, but the organisers held firm. She had undergone a sex change and was legally a woman.

  Sarah stayed in second place, following in the footsteps of the previous year’s runner-up, Anna Crilly, who played Magda in the BBC sitcom Lead Balloon. Close behind Sarah in the 2004 competition, was actress and comedian Ruth Bratt, who came third. Now famous for her appearances in the Kellogg’s Nutrigrain adverts, as well as for appearing in Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive on BBC3, Bratt is another distinguished comic who was rising up the ranks at the same time as Millican.

  Next, Millican won her way to the final of the 2005 BBC New Comedy Awards, well known for launching comic careers and bringing budding talent to the attention of agents and bookers.

  Established in 1995, the awards are considered to have been one of the top UK comedy newcomer awards. During its time, its finals have boasted many well-known names, who have continued to work in comedy to great acclaim. Marcus Brigstocke won in 1996, followed by Josie Long in 1999, Alan Carr in 2001 and Rhod Gilbert in 2003. Other notable finalists include Peter Kay, Lee Mack, Russell Howard, Justin Lee Collins, Nina Conti and Julian Barratt. The list of previous entrants is like a British ‘Hall of Fame’ of contemporary comedians, all of whom have gone on to have great success. It must have been exciting to be in such great company.

  Travelling to Cardiff for the finals, Sarah found herself booked into a Marriott Hotel – a much classier place than the down-to-earth lass was used to staying in. She mingled with the small group of finalists, expecting the usual competitive spirit. But then one contestant piped up: ‘Do you think I’ve got time to ring my mum?’

  Sarah laughed and immediately knew she’d get on with the blue-eyed, earnest looking young man, who introduced himself as Tom Allen. While everyone else went and got drunk together, Sarah and Tom spent their time exploring the swanky hotel they were so excited to be staying in. By the end of the evening they knew they would be friends for life…

  Now is a good time to point out that Sarah doesn’t drink. It’s an interesting revelation, as most comedians are notorious boozers… unsurprising, considering the amount of time they spend alone in hotels, or licking their wounds after a tough gig.

  Notorious comedy drinkers have included dark poet Bill Hicks, who was described as a ‘hard-drinking, chain-smoking ball of angry energy’, and Animal House bad boy John Belushi, whose manic comic presence many agree was mainly fuelled by his propensity for alcohol.

  In 2006 it was widely reported that Robin Williams checked himself into rehab to deal with his addiction to alcohol, which had become all-consuming for the comedian and actor.

  American Saturday Night Live cast member Tracy Morgan’s struggles with alcohol have also been well documented. He was reportedly arrested for drink driving in both California and New York and even had to wear a SCRAM – a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring – device for nearly 150 days to try and save him from the perils of over-boozing. He has been sober since 2009.

  Until relatively recently, comedians have been regularly cruelly stereotyped as depressed alcoholics – sad clowns, trying to make people laugh to fend off their own misery. But a wave of new comedians have bucked that trend, with their new and insightful approach to making people laugh. Unlike the dark and brooding comedians of the 80s and 90s, the clean-living lifestyles and down-to-earth attitudes of, for example, Miranda Hart, Michael McIntyre and Tina Fey, have brought comedians up from the proverbial gutter.

  Sarah has simply never felt the need to turn to drink for consolation. Instead, she has faced all her problems head on. Plus she’s just not very good at drinking. She reacts badly to the stuff, and says: ‘My life is so busy, if I do have a day off I don’t want to spend it vomiting.’ She has, on average, three shandies a year – and feels all the better for it.

  Back to the New Comedy Awards…

  It was a big deal for Sarah to make it to the final. She performed her piece to the judges and audience and nervously awaited the results. But, yet again, she found herself in second place – this time beaten by her new friend Tom Allen. ‘I came second, but I was still quite proud,’ Sarah said afterwards.

  Tom, Sarah and third-placed Edward Aczel were the last winners of the New Comedy Awards. The following year the competition would take a five-year sabbatical, before being adapted to become a nationwide talent hunt that favours sketch writing and filmed performances over stand-up.

  But to come second in the final of its last outing was perfect timing for Sarah, who flourished as a result of the industry buzz that soon arose around her competition routines. She suddenly found herself getting booked for more gigs and appearances, but she still had a long way to go before she had the kind of pull to pack out a 100-day tour…

  And as well as a runners-up award, she had forged a fledgling friendship with Tom, which would grow stronger as the years passed.

  Tom was just 22 when he won the New Comedy Awards. He has since performed at Just for Laughs in Montreal, London’s Soho Theatre, New York’s UCB Theatre and he has had his own show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the past three years. His camp Noel Coward-esque performances have led to him being described in 2009 as ‘one of the more adorable stand-ups at the Edinburgh Fringe’.

  Sarah describes Tom as a ‘tonic’ and says that she laughs so much when she’s with him that she almost wets herself. ‘I like my own space but Tom is one of the few friends I can spend a whole day with,’ she told The Independent in 2011. ‘We both like side-stepping the thing a building was made for and going for the secondary function instead. We’ll meet at the Curzon Cinema in Soho, for tea and chocolate fudge cake at the café, but we’ve yet to see a film there. Or at the National Portrait Gallery we’ll zip around to get to the gift shop and buy postcards.’

  Tom is a big flirt and Sarah loves watching him work his charm, especially on waiters. ‘It’s not obvious, he just steps it up a notch, there’s a bit more banter. He’s just a bit funnier and I think, “Why doesn’t he do this with me?”’

  The two don’t make a natural pair, which Sarah readily admits. ‘One of our biggest differences has to be our dress sense. Tom has amazing attention to detail, from top to toe. It’s quirky and particular. People see me and think I look quite mumsy and accessible.’

  But they have been firm friends since that 2005 awards ceremony and it’s a friendship she cherishes. ‘You want people in your life who you’ve been friends with when you were starting out. I don’t think I’ll turn into a dick with the success, but I’ve seen it happen to others and Tom would tell me if I did.’

  The duo have done a few gigs together over the course of their friendship, and not all of them have been major successes. But Sarah insists that the tougher gigs were the ones that actually brought them closer. ‘We did one for a room of 40 nurses for National Handwashing Week and it was quite a hard crowd, which is often the case when you perform to a group from a single industry.’

  Tom recalls the first moment he met Sarah with equal affection. ‘I remember coming her coming up to me and saying, “I like you, I want to be your friend”. She’s very upfront and open like that, while I find it really difficult to make new friends and coul
d never have done that – it snowballed from there.’

  They met again soon after at a swanky BBC party and once more shunned the mingling to sit in the corner and devour the buffet and down cups of juice. Both of them hated the forced conversations that came with the obligatory networking and just wanted to have a good time getting to know each other.

  Sarah has also been a helpful sounding board for Tom. ‘You feel vulnerable when you first start off in stand-up, but as long as you have someone else saying, “You’re going to be OK,” it’s fine, and Sarah was particularly intuitive about my worries. My favourite advice from her was Millican’s Maxim: if you’ve had a bad gig, forget about it by 11am the following day, and move on.’

  Tom loves the fact that Sarah looks so sweet and lovely, but will then come out with something outrageous that will have them both falling around with laughter. Other diners sometimes stare disapprovingly when they’re eating out together, but Tom is adamant it’s because they’re jealous. Or it could be because her laugh sounds like a clown’s horn, he isn’t sure.

  He’s also grateful for her honesty and advice, and credits her with helping him use his own tough times to comic effect, just as she herself has done.

  ‘I talk about being gay quite a lot,’ Tom explained to The Independent in 2011. ‘I was on a date and kissing a guy on the street and these lads drove past in the car, with one shouting “You disgusting queers” and another, rather randomly, “– and get a job!” I was on the brink of tears but Sarah inspired me to take those difficult times, as she has, and be honest about my feelings. You’re not reducing it, turning it into nothing – you’re sharing it and allowing the absurdities to ring out.’ It’s a very elegant way of describing how Sarah has used her pain and sadness and turned them into a gift for the world.

  It’s obvious that Sarah and Tom have helped each other navigate the crowded comedy world waters and emerged with a close friendship. But it must have been with a mixture of frustration and happiness that she congratulated Tom on his next award win – because yet again it bumped her into second place.

  So You Think You’re Funny is an annual stand-up comedy competition for new acts. Founded by Karen Koren in 1988, the prize money now stands at £2,000 and the winner is given the chance to guest present a comedy programme on Paramount, as well as a much-coveted spot on the Best of British Show at the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival. It is the longest-running best comedy newcomer award in Great Britain and is well-respected by the industry.

  When Sarah entered the competition she was following in some very famous footsteps. In 1993, now world-famous Irish comic Dylan Moran won the prestigious competition, and just like Sarah, he had only been performing for less than a year. In 1995 the world was introduced to Would I Lie To You? team captain Lee Mack through the Edinburgh-based competition, while in 1997 Phoenix Nights star Peter Kay impressed his way to the winning spot.

  Sarah competed in the first round of heats, in which three competitors were chosen to go through to the second round. When she was picked as one of those three, she was overjoyed. Firstly, she now had a real chance of recognition, but secondly she was excited about where the second and final rounds would be held. Edinburgh.

  Sarah was going to the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time. She knew that she wanted to one day perform there properly, and so it was a great opportunity to see what kind of audience she would have – and what standard of talent was expected from the comedians. Plus she had her friend Tom Allen with her for company.

  But she must have been nervously going over her eight-minute routine as she wandered around the beautiful Scottish city. It was a big opportunity and she wanted to do her absolute best.

  After sailing through the second round, the night of the grand final arrived. Walking into the venue, The Gilded Balloon, would have done nothing to calm Sarah’s nerves. A tall, castle-like building, it is now one of the largest and best-known venues at the Fringe Festival, renowned for its innovative programming and for unleashing previously undeveloped potential.

  It is a huge venue, comprising of nine performance spaces, three bars, a restaurant, nightclub and a beer garden, and is most famous for its in-house late night comedy line-up show, Late N’ Live – where ‘anything can, and invariably does happen’. Funny, outrageous, and more than a bit sweary, Sarah’s brand of comedy must have fitted seamlessly into the line-up.

  Many a household name has cut their teeth appearing on the Late N’ Live stage. Tim Minchin, Russell Brand, Rhona Cameron, Tommy Tierney – the list of its comedy pedigree is endless and, as a result, the So You Think You’re Funny competition is widely known as the most influential of its kind in the UK.

  For the 2005 competition, Bill Bailey was the MC. So when Sarah walked out on stage to give her eight-minute set it was him who announced her name. She performed well and the audience liked her instantly. As she heard the raucous laughs from the crowd she fell into an easy flow of stories and punchlines, drawn from her already popular material about her family and her break-up.

  When she was given the second place award she was still pleased. She knew she had come a long way in a very short space of time and it was an incredible achievement. As previously mentioned, Tom Allen came first and would be heading off to Montreal to be warmly received by a new audience of Canadian fans, while the darkly humoured Joe Wilkinson – who has since supported both Russell Kane and Alan Carr on tour – took the third-place spot.

  But Sarah was itching for a win. Never the kind to rest on her laurels, she spent the next few months working and reworking her performance style and content and performing in pubs and other venues as often as she could.

  Then, she decided to enter a competition that was in a different league to the three newcomer awards she had so far attempted to win – The Amused Moose Awards. First and foremost a famous comedy club in London, Amused Moose prides itself on its top-billing performances, great value ticket prices and its nurturing of lesser-known talent. It also hosts regular Amused Moose Comedy shows in various London theatres, and they run their comedy awards once a year, before taking the winning talent to the Edinburgh Fringe for their annual Big Value Show.

  The club has a large and varied fan base and consistently hosts big household name acts, who use the venue to run through new material before going on tour. And it’s not only on stage that famous faces can be found – Paloma Faith, Cate Blanchett and Ricky Gervais are all fans of the comedy venue, so you never know who you’ll be rubbing shoulders with in the audience.

  The Moose team first began running comedy competitions in 2004, and quickly became known for their keen eye for talent. Award winners have all been previously unknown comics, and have generally become high profile and much sought after following their win. Simon Amstell, Rhod Gilbert, Jimmy Carr and Alex Zane have all been finalists in their competitions, proving the awards to be something of a career launcher.

  To enter, Sarah needed to have performed in at least a dozen venues, and to prove that she had been consistently rebooked. As its website states: ‘This is not a competition for novices’. It was a big step for Sarah, who by now was getting to grips with life as a gigging comedian and easily met the requirements.

  The best of the talent seen throughout the competition would be showcased not only at the Big Value Night in Edinburgh, but also in front of producers, casting directors and agents, as well as journalists and reviewers at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre, the following year.

  It was a big opportunity. Sarah went ahead and entered.

  The closest heat for her to enter was in Leeds, so she travelled to the city for the first round of the competition. She qualified easily and had to travel to London for the quarter-finals in June and then the semi-finals in July at Amused Moose’s Camden venue.

  After a tense final, Sarah was announced as the Amused Moose 2005 winner. She was understandably thrilled. After less than a year on the comedy circuit she had come second in three competitions and now
she had won her first. All the judges agreed she stood out from the other performers, but there was another reason that she was particularly pleased – she had bagged herself a manager.

  Chambers Management is led by its founder, Hannah Chambers, and has a client list drawn from the cream of the stand-up comedy circuit. They are a nurturing, boutique agency, that work closely with their selective client list to develop raw stand-up talent into the kind needed for a long-lasting career performing and writing for television, radio and film.

  Sarah knew them as the agency that looked after Jimmy Carr, who was fast becoming a rising star in the world of TV and radio. So when they approached her with an offer of representation, she knew that she was well on her way. With an agent on board she would have a steady stream of work and a visible route to the big time. It was celebration time in the Millican household.

  The next two years was a flurry of hard work and Sarah found herself travelling to gigs all over the country. Luckily she didn’t experience much of the infamous heckling that comedians often fall foul of, and Sarah believes this is because she’s not an aggressive performer. In 2009 she told The Guardian: ‘It’s usually men that heckle and I think that there’s an ingrained feeling that they’ve got to be a bit nice to me.’

  But even the gentlest of performers can be thrown by a cruel comment, and Sarah had one or two moments in those early years that tested her confidence.

  In one early piece of material, which Sarah eventually discarded from her set, she asked the audience what she should do with her wedding dress.

  ‘On one occasion, a bloke shouted out what I thought was “Dye it!”,’ she revealed to The Guardian. ‘So I said: “What, you mean lots of different colours?” And he shouted back: “No! D-I-E-T. Diet!”’

  At another gig in Oxford she had a similarly cruel audience response. ‘A man shouted out: “Wear a bra!” And I was,’ she explained. ‘It was like being kicked in the crotch. I think I just replied: “It’s like being heckled by Trinny and Susannah!”’