Sarah Millican--The Queen of Comedy

by Tina Campanella

  The audience laughed at her deadpan delivery, but she wasn’t finished yet…

  ‘Recently we’ve been getting a bit more practice and he started off and he said, “you’ve been such a bad girl, that I think I’m going to have to punch you…” He’s gone a bit too far there hasn’t he? But I’d actually misheard him, what he’d actually said was “punish you”, which apparently is perfectly acceptable in terms of sexy lingo. But he hadn’t really thought it through, because I said, “What kind of punishment did you have in mind?” He said: “Take the bins out.”’

  It was classic Sarah and the audience loved it. She was proving herself to be a versatile performer – both on stage and on screen.

  Her first guest spot of 2010 was in January, when she was invited back to join the cast of Mock The Week. This time she joined her radio co-star Chris Addison and Hugh Dennis to form one team, while on the other was Andy Parsons, John Bishop and Russell Howard.

  Sarah looked very different to when she had appeared on the show just a few months before. Her hair was now a honeyed blonde and she was wearing a bright red and purple dress that suited her complexion. Again she was part of an all-male, all-star line-up, and again, she more than held her own.

  In the improvisation section of the competition, Sarah was given the subject of home life, where she covered a by now familiar topic. ‘My home life doesn’t involve children,’ she said. ‘I don’t really like children and most of my friends don’t have kids, and if you ask any woman who doesn’t, what would worry them about having kids, the answer is always childbirth; because, from what I understand of childbirth, it changes your downstairs quite a bit. I quite like my downstairs, thanks very much. I certainly don’t want an extension. But it’s bound to change though isn’t it? Because you’re forcing a person out of there… I’ve never forced a person out of there – I’ve forced a couple in…’

  As usual, Sarah had lowered the tone, much to the delight of the audience. And she wasn’t finished. ‘But I was in a shop recently and this little boy came running over to me and put his hand in mine and shouted, “mammy!” I thought, “I sometimes forget my keys but I think I’d remember that”. And then his dad came over and I thought, “I wonder if this is the best chat-up line ever and he’s gonna come over and say: ‘No, no, that’s not your mammy, remember – your mammy left us because my willy’s too big.’”’

  The audience cackled with laughter and Sarah did a neat little curtsey. She and Chris Addison shared the points for best improv, and double high-fived to celebrate.

  Two weeks later she made her debut on Argumental, another comedy panel game show. At the time, the show was being hosted by John Sergeant, whose post-journalistic career was on the rise after a surprising appearance on dance show Strictly Come Dancing. A show in which the two teams have to argue over various controversial topics, it involves a representative from each team taking it in turns to argue for and against a subject. The audience then gets to vote over who they think has put forward the best case. In the red corner Marcus Brigstocke was joined by Jimmy Carr, while in the blue corner, Rufus Hound was teamed with Sarah.

  The first topic of discussion was: ‘If a dolphin has to die so I can have a tuna sandwich then so be it.’ Sarah was up first, arguing for the statement, which must have been very difficult for the animal-lover. Hound was extremely enthusiastic about having Sarah on his team and whooped and clapped with gusto as she walked to the centre stage to deliver her speech.

  ‘I think I can address the ladies and gentlemen of the audience with a fact,’ she began. ‘Dolphins can’t actually cure terminal illness. In fact it almost has the opposite effect: 85 per cent of children who had terminal illness and have been put in a pool to swim with dolphins, die within 48 hours of the experience.’

  It was a risky subject to riff off, but Sarah had never shied away from the controversial. Hound solemnly nodded in agreement as the audience tentatively laughed.

  ‘What really has happened is that once they’ve had the experience, which is apparently one of the best things you can ever experience, they’ve gone, “It’s quite poor that.”’

  Enthused by the growing laughter, Sarah continued: ‘I think it’s almost about the fact that dolphins have better PR than tuna, don’t they? They do, they have a better image. No Athena poster ever came out of a tuna majestically playing, did it? No, it was always dolphins and whales… But there is a new foundation for people, that has been brought about for people who don’t have as much money but still have children who are dying. It’s like a budget foundation. Instead of swimming with dolphins, what you do is have a bath with a tuna.’

  Jimmy Carr looked puzzled as he waited for the punchline. ‘It’s called Bathing with Tuna and it’s from the Take a Fish Foundation…’ The applause was loud and enthusiastic as she returned to her seat.

  Brigstocke’s response to Sarah’s argument lay on much safer ground. ‘You wouldn’t eat crisps if a kitten had to die… you don’t need dolphins to die for you to eat a tuna sandwich – killing dolphins serves no porpoise.’

  As the votes were cast, it seemed that maybe her jokes had been a little too risky, as Marcus won the round. But it demonstrated how fearless Sarah was on stage, and introduced a whole new audience to her darker side – a side you would never know existed from her sweetly feminine appearance.

  A month later, Sarah was invited on a brand new show called The Bubble. Already successful in Israel, Poland, Denmark and Sweden, the British version was the first to feature celebrities and was hosted by David Mitchell. It would prove an interesting experience.

  Sarah was taken to a remote country house in the East Midlands, where she was joined by Clive Anderson, Andy Hamilton and two production staff members. Her mobile phone was confiscated and she was denied access to any newspapers, radio broadcasts, television shows or the Internet. For four days she lived in isolation with the other comics, before being taken straight to a studio set to take part in a quiz.

  Presented with both real and fake news stories, the contestants then had to decided which were real. Both ITV News and Sky News gamely assisted in the filming of the fake stories. It was the first time that Sarah had been described as ‘a celebrity’, and it was a very positive sign of her growing status in the media.

  Filmed in a reality TV style, it was also the first time Sarah’s fans could catch a glimpse of what she was like when she wasn’t performing on stage. ‘We had a very jolly time,’ said Clive Anderson when the gang returned from isolation. Sarah said that she’d been hoping times would have moved forward while she’d been cut off from the world. ‘I was hoping things would be a bit more futuristic. You know, hover-boards and silver outfits and tablets instead of meals, but from what I’ve seen so far it doesn’t seem to have happened.’

  Sarah had to decide which was true out of three stories – ‘Shopkeepers banned from holding naked Mondays’, ‘Chickens murder a fox’, and ‘David Cameron has a spray tan’. Sarah decided that the shopkeeper story was the real one, perhaps out of wishful thinking. But she was incorrect. Chickens had indeed exacted a fatal form of revenge on their coop intruder.

  In the next round Sarah was delighted to see a picture of a gorilla in a bikini, which had apparently been spotted on planet Mars. The trio had to decide whether it was the real newspaper story, or whether it was ‘Prince Philip snapped relieving himself behind a tree’, or ‘BBC’s pre-election debate to be hosted by Fern Britton’.

  Hamilton and Anderson began teasing her about her ‘obsession’ with animals in clothes, which they had apparently discovered while living together over the previous few days.

  However much she would have liked it to be true, Sarah didn’t believe the gorilla story, and instead plumped for the royal tale. But she was wrong again – a photograph had indeed been taken that appeared to show a gorilla on Mars.

  Sarah appreciated her time in isolation – particularly the wonderful food that had been cooked for her. ‘The food was really good i
n the house,’ she said. ‘And I’m all about microwave dinners normally, so I have got a lot closer to my target weight…which is just massive.’

  Clive Anderson had taught her and Andy how to play bridge, which had been a novel experience. She said: ‘Apparently you don’t even shout “Bridge” at any point, which is rubbish!’ But, although Sarah had obviously enjoyed herself, I doubt we’ll be seeing her in the Big Brother House any time soon…

  Soon after, Sarah jetted off to spend another month in Australia for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and once again she was well received. But once back on UK soil, Sarah wasted no time in getting back on the panel show circuit.

  In early May, she filmed an episode of the hilarious show Would I Lie To You? It would be broadcast in August, while she was performing at the Fringe. Presented by Welsh treasure Rob Brydon, the show involved two teams of comedians each taking it in turns to reveal fascinating and previously unknown facts about themselves – not all of which were true. It was then up to the other panellists to decide if the tales were fact or fiction.

  On David Mitchell’s team, Sarah found herself teamed with the legendary Ronnie Corbett, competing against Lee Mack, Holly Walsh and Julian Clary. Sarah told the opposing team: ‘I once spent an entire day on the ASDA shuttle bus, just to have a day out.’

  Everyone fired questions at her to try and discover if she was telling the truth. ‘How long did you spend on the ASDA shuttle bus?’ asked Lee Mack.

  ‘Three hours,’ replied Sarah confidently.

  ‘What branch were you going to?’ asked Holly Walsh.

  ‘It was the Boldon ASDA,’ Sarah said without hesitating.

  ‘Did you get on the bus thinking you were going to go shopping and then thought, “this is fun I’ll stay on”, or did you plan to get on the bus as a jaunt?’ Holly went on.

  Again, Sarah was quick to respond. ‘I got on because I thought it would take me home, but it didn’t go anywhere near my house. So I just stayed on and then got back off at ASDA.’

  For Sarah, it sounded plausible – she has admitted to being scatty in the past and has mentioned ASDA in her stand-up a number of times.

  ‘Yes it’s true,’ revealed Brydon. ‘There’s always one slightly strange person on those buses – you know, that everyone’s slightly scared of. In this case, it was Sarah.’

  Two weeks later she was once again on our screens as a guest on Frank Skinner’s new series, Opinionated. A studio-based, light-hearted talk show, it focused on news events of the previous week, and involved a large amount of audience participation.

  This particular aspect of comedy is something that Sarah has always been very adept at. Sarah first appeared in episode three of the new show, but she proved so positive with the audience that she was quickly invited back for two more guest spots over the next month.

  Also in May, she appeared once more on You Have Been Watching, alongside American comic Reginald D Hunter, Charlie Brooker and Peter Serafinowicz. After being shown a clip from Junior Apprentice, involving baby-faced business boys and girls trying to prove their worth to a stony-faced Sir Alan Sugar, Sarah took the opportunity to tell everyone a story about her first job. As usual, she managed to bring the house down by significantly lowering the tone of the conversation.

  ‘I used to work at WH Smith when I was 16 as a Saturday kid,’ she said. ‘It was when they still sold porn. The price would never come up when you did the wand thing over the barcode, and I had to look amongst the boobs for it, at sixteen – and the blokes always went, ‘It’s £2.50’, under their breath…’

  ‘Lovely,’ remarked Brooker.

  Next, each of the contestants were asked to design their own camping product, to compete with the junior apprentice team’s design of a travelling storage unit. Serafinowicz invented a ‘bug sucker’, while Hunter decided on some yellow-tinted sunglasses, designed to fool you into thinking it’s sunny when it’s not. But Sarah proved she would never be the outdoorsy type, when she designed a hivis jacket especially for camping at music festivals. ‘It’s got a key to your car, so you can go home when it starts getting s**t,’ she explained, pointing to a picture she’d drawn to illustrate her invention. ‘There’s an iPod in case the music that’s on is not very good, and a fold-out hotel, so that you don’t have to go camping at all…’

  It’s safe to say Sir Alan would have fired her instantly, but Brooker gave Sarah the points for the round.

  The panel also took a look at one of Sarah’s favourite shows, The Biggest Loser, which takes dangerously overweight people and sends them to an extreme exercise boot camp. Sarah was quick to praise it. ‘I really like it, I find that they really empower them, because they’re sort of teaching them how to think, and how to get the hunger – pardon the expression – so they can do it themselves. And also it makes me feel really skinny…’

  After going on to discuss the size of a dinosaur’s man parts, the title of model Tyra Banks’ new novel and Susan Boyle’s newest reality TV rival (America’s ‘NuBo’), Sarah was announced the winner of the show.

  Next for Sarah was a TV appearance that many would say was no surprise. With her confident pro-female attitude it was only really a matter of time before she was invited on the ITV lunchtime chat show Loose Women, as she was exactly the kind of potty-mouthed and cheeky female that its presenters – Andrea McLean, Zoe Tyler, Carol McGiffin and Jane MacDonald would enjoy having a cuppa and a giggle with. Sarah’s first visit to the Loose Women studio duly came in July 2010.

  It was worlds apart from her usual style of TV appearance, in which she usually competed with a panel of men. But with her gutter mouth and frank sex talk, she appeared to fit in right away. The producers were rightly impressed with her ease in front of a live audience and began to discuss having Sarah on board as a presenter.

  It was another sign of her versatility. At home on both live and pre-recorded shows, equally comfortable chatting with a panel of strong-willed and arguably sex-obsessed women and competing for laughs with an all-male line-up – Sarah seemed to be able to do it all, even while writing a new show and preparing for yet another Edinburgh appearance.

  Her work ethic in the first seven months of 2010 was certainly formidable. But it was positively restful compared to what she had planned for the rest of the year. More guest spots on Have I Got News For You, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Odd One In and Argumental, would have to be fitted in around an extremely tight schedule – because Sarah was about to go on her first tour, with her new show, Chatterbox.

  CHAPTER 17

  Chatterbox

  ‘You do have to be aware that you might be flavour of the month, but that a new flavour could come along. So I think it’s all about making sure I’m good at things and making sure I get better at things. And I think that’s how you get longevity in the industry.’

  Ever since her return from the Fringe in 2009, Sarah had been hard at work on her new show – and by February 2010 she was ready to preview it.

  Taking place early each year, The Leicester Comedy Festival is one of Sarah’s important writing deadlines. She always makes sure that she has a recognisable new act to showcase there, so that she can start honing her material in time for the August Fringe. ‘Leicester is very important to my gig,’ she told their local newspaper when she arrived to perform. ‘If you’ve seen it in Leicester and like it, you’re responsible for my future finished show, and this festival has a clever and sharp audience.’

  The festival director, Geoff Rowe, agreed – he told the same newspaper that the city had worked hard to ensure the festival was a comfortable space for acts to try new material.

  Calling it Work in Progress, Sarah knew its first outing would be ‘rough and ready’. ‘A joke can seem funny in your house but you never know how it’s going to work in front of an audience,’ she said. She added that she thought about five out of ten of her jokes would work, but that ‘hopefully by the end of the festival I could be at seven, fingers crossed.’

  I
t was always a nerve-racking but exciting time for Sarah. Gauging audience reaction, mentally putting ticks or crosses against all of her jokes – she told the audience not to go easy on her. ‘I’ll be there with my cup of tea in one hand, list of jokes in the other and nerves of steel,’ she said.

  A few days later she was at The Mandela Hall in Belfast, in front of another test audience. This time, her boyfriend Gary was on the same bill. The promotional material described her as ‘one of the top female comics in the business’, and she was well received.

  Over the next few months, in between her television and radio appearances, Sarah continued to perform her new work regularly. As late as June she still had a tape recorder at her side, and her notes in hand, when she got on stage at the Hyena Lounge Comedy Club in York.

  Gary was with her once again, also testing out his new material. ‘You shouldn’t take notes into an exam, but no one feels the need to shout ‘cheat’ when Edinburgh-bound comedians so brazenly carry crib cards on to the Basement stage,’ wrote one reviewer of the show. ‘One of the Fringe benefits of the upcoming jamboree in Scotland is the chance to see headline acts discovering so bluntly whether their new material stands up,’ they quipped.

  Gary had made the tick or cross test part of his show – by reading his famous one-liners from cards, before either discarding them in the ‘bin of shame’, dropping them happily into the IKEA ‘bag of quite good’, or dumping them in a separate ‘maybe’ pile.