Sarah Millican--The Queen of Comedy

by Tina Campanella

  So it was no surprise that when the Loose Women aired the infamous Andy Gray and Richard Keys conversation to provoke a discussion, Sarah was balanced and typically blunt about her thoughts on the matter. Immediately after the recording was played, the audience drew a collectively sharp intake of breath at the shocking display of sexism by the two commentators, which had been recorded in an off-air moment during a football match.

  But before anyone could say anything, Sarah said: ‘I think what you’ve got to remember first of all is it was a private conversation. I’m not excusing it – I’m saying at least that that shouldn’t have been made public anyway. We’ve all said things behind closed doors, haven’t we? It’s like the Gordon Brown thing when he still had his mike on in the car – you’ve got to remember it’s a private conversation, I’m not excusing it, but they were never intending that to be heard by anybody.’

  In some way Sarah became the voice of reason for the show. She offered a different kind of insight to its viewers, many of whom agreed with her measured and honest opinions, which were delivered along with some cracking one-liners. But sadly, ratings continued to fall.

  When Coleen Nolan left the show in March, she was swiftly followed by Kate Thornton and Zoe Tyler, prompting viewers to come to the conclusion that Loose Women was in dire straits.

  The Daily Mail reported that a mere 700,000 viewers were tuning in to watch the ITV show by June 2010 – half of BBC One’s low budget time-slot rival Bargain Hunt.

  Two months later it appeared Sarah had a decision to make. Her other commitments – including other TV appearances, her new show and tour and the scripting and filming of her own TV show – were taking up more and more of her time.

  She began negotiations with the studio bosses, who had decided on a huge revamp of the show’s format, which viewers were starting to call ‘stale’. Carol Vorderman and Sally Lindsay were asked to join the show, in an attempt to breathe new life into it. Should she stay with an ailing programme? Or should she leave to concentrate on her own rising stardom?

  The answer was obvious. On 3 August 2011, she appeared for the last time as a presenter on the show.

  CHAPTER 21

  On the Sofa with P Diddy

  ‘I couldn’t hold it in for five years, no…’

  In early 2011, Sarah made a television appearance that the celebrity world would be talking about for years to come. It was also the moment that TV bosses began to animatedly discuss Sarah’s possible future as the host of her own show.

  On 21 January, she was invited to appear on Graham Norton’s fabulous and ever so slightly filthy, self-titled BBC One chat show, alongside P Diddy and Vince Vaughn. It must have seemed an unlikely trio – a Geordie comic, a ridiculously rich rapper and a Hollywood actor. But the combination would eventually prove compelling television.

  Sarah was dwarfed as she sat between the two towering Alisters, but she was remarkably unfazed by their celebrity status. She listened politely as they each talked about their careers and recent successes. Then Norton turned to ask her a question and Sarah began to speak about her boyfriend and their relationship. P Diddy looked bored and hid behind his huge sunglasses, while Vaughn nodded and smiled, trying to understand her thick accent.

  ‘We try doing date nights,’ Sarah told them all. ‘To get things… you know… moving. We went out for a lovely curry, put a DVD on, but then half way through the film we got a bit… you know… frisky – things started getting a little bit hot.’

  Vaughn looked amused and raised his eyebrows at Norton, while Diddy just sat back and continued trying to look cool.

  ‘We’d obviously forgotten that we’d had a curry a couple of hours before that,’ she went on, as Norton began to look a bit grossed out. He obviously thought he knew where Sarah was going with her story, but the truth was he had no idea how far she would take her tale.

  ‘Nevertheless he went “downstairs”,’ she went on, making a fairly obvious insinuation.

  At this point, Diddy almost pricked up his ears. Surely she didn’t mean what he thought she meant? Sarah clarified, ‘I don’t mean in case I wanted a glass of water…’

  The audience giggled, and Vaughn, a little bit embarrassed, said: ‘Yeah, we know what you mean. Was this pre-shower, post shower, during shower?’

  ‘After shower, I’m not a pervert,’ Sarah shot back, as Diddy stayed silent, trying to rise above the dirty chat. ‘So we’re keeping it fresh,’ nodded Vaughn, gamely joining in.

  ‘Yes, and, er, he went “downstairs”, and er, it was fun. It was all going so well and I realised I could – I’m sorry, there’s no nice way of saying this, I apologise in advance – I could feel a fart brewing…’

  Diddy’s cool exterior melted instantly. His mouth fell open and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He actually couldn’t believe the woman sat next to him was discussing farting during sex on television.

  Norton began to rock with laughter, pointing at the stunned rapper. ‘Your face!’ he gasped through his giggles. Sarah started laughing too as finally Diddy cracked a small smile. ‘Now who’s learning?’ she told him cheekily, before carrying on with her tale – with Diddy and Vaughn now a very captive audience.

  ‘I didn’t really know what to do, so I did a similar thing to in the film Rainman – I started going, “Uh oh, uh oh”… And he just carried on, because as he told me afterwards, he thought I was doing an impression of Beyonce.’

  The audience began to applaud wildly, and even Diddy gave up posing sternly and began to chuckle. ‘Did you manage to hold it in till after it was over?’ Vaughn asked, clearly egging her on.

  ‘I managed to hold it in, you’ll be pleased to know. We’ve got safe words and stuff now – it’s good to have safe words. Even if it’s, “I need to fart!” It can be blunt, it doesn’t need to be coded.’

  ‘But the other thing is,’ Vaughn added, feigning seriousness, ‘You guys have obviously gotten close if you are that comfortable with each other – but there is still room to grow when you “let it go”…’

  ‘Oh I mean absolutely,’ Sarah said. ‘That’s the next stage I think.’ Vaughn and Sarah made a good double act as they continued to discuss the virtues of farting as intimacy. ‘Maybe save it, for if you wanna give him that gift?’ he asked.

  Sarah nodded. ‘Maybe if it’s an anniversary or something?’

  ‘Don’t do it with every man, save it for someone special?’ added the actor.

  ‘Oh absolutely, that’s a good tip. Thank you,’ replied Sarah.

  Norton looked on in amazement as Diddy finally entered the conversation, probably wary of the fact that he had been silent for so long. ‘I have a saying that you can’t really trust a woman till she’s farted in front of you,’ he offered.

  ‘That’s a great saying,’ said Sarah. ‘You could get badges with that on. They’d probably sell on your website.’

  It was impossible to tell whether Diddy knew that Sarah was teasing him, but he added: ‘If she can hide a fart, you don’t know what else she can hide. I’ll tell you where it comes from: ‘When you’ve been with a girl for five, six, seven years, and I’m like: “You don’t fart?” And I know she farts…’

  Sarah nodded encouragingly as he continued: ‘If she can hide a fart from me, what else is she hiding from me?’

  ‘You go through phases, don’t you?’ Sarah said, still teasing the mega star. ‘Where you don’t do it in front of each other and then you do it.’

  ‘Yeah but I’ve been with her for five years though, you know,’ said Diddy. Sarah put on a look of shock in preparation for her punchline: ‘No, I couldn’t hold it in for five years,’ she said, shaking her head.

  It was a masterful appearance. Diddy and Vaughn had come on the show to plug a new album and film, and had no idea they would be taken down to Sarah’s laddish level. It must have come as a shock to them both, as they clearly had no prior knowledge of who the blonde bespectacled women between them was.

  A lot of people
would have been a little star struck, but not Sarah. She shocked and surprised the world-famous pair, and practically took over hosting duties from Norton as she drew them into her story. Essentially, Sarah got Mr Cool himself – P Diddy – to talk about farts on TV. It was a triumph, and one that certainly got her noticed by the show’s execs.

  ‘Americans aren’t very rude on their telly,’ she explained to The Mirror soon after. ‘You’d never get them talking about that kind of stuff on Letterman. I just decided to talk to P Diddy like he was normal. That was a big turning point, as a lot of people who weren’t aware of me, became aware of me. The experience was ridiculous but I loved it.’

  The paper went on to report that a well-placed TV source had told them: ‘BBC bosses were impressed by the way Sarah handled being on the show. She was sat between P Diddy and Vince Vaughn and yet was still the most entertaining guest that night.’ It was high praise indeed.

  Two days later, Sarah travelled to London’s O2 Centre for the British Comedy Awards. It was the first time she had been nominated for an award at the prestigious ceremony, and for Sarah, it proved just how seriously she was being taken by the industry.

  Celebrating the best of the entertainment industry from the previous year, the British Comedy Awards has been recognising comic talent since 1990. Jonathan Ross has presented the ceremony since 1991, only missing a year in 2008 following the Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs radio disaster.

  Sarah had, in fact, been nominated for two awards: Best Female TV Comic and Best Female Breakthrough Comedy Artist. The comedy world had been rightly impressed with her recent TV appearances and stand-up shows, especially since she was a relative newcomer to the scene.

  Sadly, on the night, Sarah was beaten to both awards. Jo Brand walked away with Best Female TV Comic, while Breakthrough Artist went to Sam Spiro. It was an entertaining evening, but Sarah would be forgiven for feeling a little disappointed at the loss. However, she was in high spirits when she appeared on Loose Women a few days later to discuss the event. In fact, she burst out laughing when she told her fellow panellists that she didn’t win either award.

  Carol McGiffin was sympathetic and told her she’d been ‘robbed’. ‘Yes, yes, that’s the response, carry on,’ Sarah said warmly, before explaining how she had reacted to the loss on the night. ‘They want to see your response when you’ve lost, and they bring a camera right up to your face, so I ate a creme egg whole – cause that’s my equivalent of like downing a whole glass of wine!’ Everyone laughed as she reenacted stuffing her face with the chocolate treat. ‘Oh yeah, I’m really happy for her…’

  But although it must have been a disappointment, Sarah was far too busy to be down for very long. As usual she was working hard on her new show, which she would perform at Edinburgh in the summer, and she was regularly appearing on Loose Women, and a variety of other panel shows.

  In March, Sarah gave her fans a rare serious glimpse into her past, when she was invited to talk about her favourite reads for BBC Two’s My Life in Books. She was suffering slightly from a cold as she sat next to former EastEnders baddie Larry Lamb and talked about the books that she felt marked out the most important moments in her life.

  She reminisced about her school days, with a little help from her first choice, Daphne’s Book, by Mary Downing Hahn. ‘It’s about a little girl with glasses, who struggles to make friends,’ she explained to the show’s host, Anne Robinson. ‘It was only when I was asked to choose my five books that I realised how incredibly autobiographical it was. It’s about a little girl who struggles to make friends cause she’s quite bookish, and she’s forced to make friends with another little girl when they do a school project. The other girl’s quite popular and they both learn things about each other.’

  Robinson said: ‘It wasn’t exactly your childhood though was it? Because they were in America and you were in Newcastle…’

  ‘Yeah but nerds look like nerds across the world, don’t they?’ Sarah replied a little sadly, though she got a laugh from the audience.

  Robinson showed the audience a picture of Sarah as a child, beaming in a school photograph. With her huge glasses, tight curls and dungarees, she was a very cute ‘nerd’ indeed.

  Another choice for Sarah was the book she had read after her divorce – Coach Yourself: It’s Your Life: What Are You Going To Do With It? by Anthony Grant and Jane Greene.

  ‘It’s unashamedly self-help – heroically self-help,’ said Robinson. ‘Yes but it’s quite aggressive,’ said Sarah. ‘I think that’s why it caught my eye, it wasn’t namby pamby. I think I was probably looking for inspiration, just wandering around in a bookshop…’

  Sarah never actually finished the book, a fact she said proves that it had done its job – by making her enact changes in her life almost instantly. When she picked it up on the shelf to prepare for the interview she found a post-it note on page 18 – that was as far as she had got.

  But she had dipped in and out of it at other points, and had chosen a particular passage to read out to the audience – one of the life-changing tales that she had been inspired by. ‘Angela became a professional actress at the age of 50,’ she read. ‘She managed to break into an overcrowded, insecure and uncertain profession, long after most people would have even thought of it. At 49 she auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and with a little help from friends and acquaintances, she had her first professional job at 50. She went on to have a successful career on stage and TV, appearing in London’s West End with Alan Alder.’

  When Sarah finished reading, she was smiling. Robinson began to mock the book, but Sarah was firm. ‘It depends whether you see it as inspirational – whether your glass is half empty, or half full, Anne, which I expect you’re the former… It’s about realising that you can do anything.’

  It was obviously a very personal realisation, and one that had changed her life significantly. By sharing the book with others, she hoped to herself inspire people to go out and do great things. ‘I like to be inspired. Even though I’ve got a really nice life now, I think you can always make it a little bit better,’ she told Anne, to justify why she would recommend the book over all her other choices.

  Sarah’s three other choices were The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler, The Weeping Tree by Audrey Reimann, and Forever, by teen favourite Judy Blume. If you’ll forgive the pun, her book choices spoke ‘volumes’ about her personality. The show was a rare insight into the serious and intelligent woman who ultimately lies behind her funny and seemingly bullet-proof exterior.

  Barely a week later, Sarah was back to her hilarious self, travelling all over the country for the second half of her sellout Chatterbox tour. Reviews began to appear again in local papers everywhere, praising the show but disappointing those who hadn’t booked well in advance. ‘She plays Warrington tonight,’ said the Liverpool Echo, ‘but if you haven’t got a ticket then bad luck, because that show is deservedly sold out too.’

  At the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, Sarah made room for some extra special guests – the TV crew who were filming her for the forthcoming Chatterbox Live DVD.

  ‘When I go out for the evening, I like to know when it’ll be over and I can finally take my bra off,’ she told the London audience, before mocking herself for having a full-blown ‘cake shelf’, where most women’s ‘muffin top’ should be.

  ‘The quips and revelations made the evening fly by and soon it was half past 10, when Sarah could break out of her prison and take that bra off,’ joked the Bournemouth Echo in their review of her performance at The Tivoli Theatre.

  Up and down the country Chatterbox was a success. And in London – where she regularly went to film her panel show spots, she continued to be well received. In April she appeared on Opinionated again, this time with Ross Noble. In June she debuted on ITV’s Odd One In, with Stephen Mulhern, and in July she began appearing regularly on 8 Out of 10 Cats.

  Sarah also got to put the lessons she had learnt from her first marriage to good u
se on The Marriage Ref, a new show on ITV. Hosted by Dermot O’Leary, it featured a panel of celebrities refereeing arguments between couples.

  Sarah gave advice to Elena from Chingford, whose husband Tony was sick of her trying to make him eat vegetables; Chris from Cardiff who’d had enough of his wife Gillian’s obsession with buying bedding; and Sonia from County Durham who was desperate for her hubby Shaun’s obsession with the Chuckle Brothers to end. It must have been an odd show for her to work on, considering she had long since lived alone – precisely to ward off any such minor arguments. But it meant she was brilliantly impartial, and she featured in four of the show’s seven episodes.

  It was a lot of work, especially since Sarah was preparing for yet another Fringe Festival. But as ever, she was diligent and hard-working, giving her best every time she appeared on stage or screen. Her work ethic was phenomenal – and it was soon to be highly rewarded.

  CHAPTER 22

  A Thoroughly Modern Millican

  ‘I love my life and I never imagined it would get as good as this. I get paid to make people laugh – how good is that?’

  Sarah’s Chatterbox tour had been such an outright success that her growing fan base must have been waiting, telephones in hand and fingers on keyboards, for her to announce a second one.

  Because when it was announced she would be going on the road a month after the forthcoming 2011 Fringe, once again the tickets were sold out in hours. Initially a 100-date run, the speed at which its tickets were sold was phenomenal, especially on her home turf in Newcastle. Within 40 minutes of them going on sale, everyone was gone, and organisers immediately added a tenth night at the local Tyne Theatre, in a vain attempt to keep up with demand.

  It was a record-breaking run at the theatre. No comedian had ever sold out 10 nights there and Sarah was chuffed to bits. ‘It’s ridiculous isn’t it?’ she told the Newcastle Chronicle. ‘I just thought it was clearly something some people had done but I’m pleased to find out it’s a record. I’m just pointlessly adding more dates to my record, just to make it harder to beat,’ she joked.