Sarah Millican--The Queen of Comedy

by Tina Campanella

  There was no long honeymoon in the sun however as fellow comic Gary had to embark on the 2014 leg of his Purist tour. The wedding was the perfect ending for the couple who had moved in together earlier in 2013 after she admitted on Alan Carr’s Chatty Man that after seven years of living apart, the couple had finally decided to co-habit. It wasn’t a decision she had rushed in to, certainly, we know her aversion to living with someone under the same roof and the strain that can put on a relationship but, as she joked, she was sick of always being the one taking the bins out. ‘It’s big stuff, we’ve been together for seven years. For so long I killed my own spiders and now somebody else kills the spiders. I just got sick of taking the bins out,’ she told Alan. Sarah had been living in a rented flat up until 2012, in the heart of Manchester and during her relationship with Gary, commuting 80 miles to visit him in Birmingham which was also an endless source of gags in her routines.

  But now they were living together and, as the Daily Mail exposed at the beginning of May, Sarah wasn’t ‘slumming’ it in a flat anymore, she and Gary (and her two cats, Lieutenant Ripley and Chief Brody) were living in a five-bedroomed, gated mansion in Cheshire. Bought for £1.3 million in the leafy fringes of Mere, the comic’s new abode had a library, conservatory and enough garage space for four cars and, according to accounts with the company that run her affairs, SM Comedy, she had earned more than £2 million since 2011. And that was only increasing. But as her mam explained to her, talking about how much you earn, even if you are a millionaire, is not cool. ‘My mam is right, you should never ask how much people earn,’ she told the Daily Mirror. ‘No one wanted to know how much I was earning when I was on £9,500 at the Jobcentre.’

  So within a year the couple had moved in and got hitched, and to round off a fairly wonderful 2013 even further, Sarah had featured on a prestigious list of names of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. And now she had gained further cred by snubbing the BAFTAs and wearing, shock horror, the same dress that had been vilified the previous year. This wasn’t just about the dress though, Sarah knew there was so much support for her when she exposed herself about how she felt after being criticised for something she wore. This was about empowering women to be themselves and not be affected by what others think. From a situation that left her crying in the back of the car on the way home, her experience at the BAFTAs was now going to be the trigger to push her to start up her own feminist website. And that is exactly what she did. In September 2014, Standard Issue was launched and alongside journalists Mickey Noonan, Hannah Dunleavy and comedian Kiri Pritchard, the online magazine was to be a sharp, witty, irreverent magazine that championed women. ‘Standard Issue will never tell you who to be, what to wear or how to look. We believe that every woman should feel empowered to be themselves. It’s relatable, like a long lunch with a group of brilliant friends and it tells it like it is,’ informed Sarah.

  Mickey Noonan, the editor of the site also explained that the this was about reclaiming back the Internet in support of women – not being hostile towards them. ‘We wanted to see what would happen if we made a magazine our way. No celebrity tittle-tattle, no photoshopping, no calorie counting, no cellulite circling. A lot of media is keen to put women into boxes but we need to do our own thing and not be told that women are only interested in certain topics.’ It was a magazine for women, by women about everything and it was a big success in that Sarah and the team created something unique and didn’t pander to society’s narrow definition of what women are interested in. In 2016 it seemed like it was going from strength to strength with Sarah saying; ‘Of all the things I’ve done, it’s the one I’m most proud to be part of. We’re creating a healthy alternative to what is generally out there.’ Sadly, it wasn’t making enough money to cover the costs and the team were forced to axe the website two years after it launched. ‘It’s sad and we’re gutted,’ explained Mickey in March 2017. ‘But Sarah and the editorial team our amazing roster of writers and illustrators created something absolutely excellent and vital. Standard Issue came, we saw, we kicked ass. And we made thousands upon thousands of you excellent people feel great about as you got in touch and told us so.’ But the team weren’t going to give up and Standard Issue developed to become a magazine-style podcast with the same content but on a different platform.

  As her Home Bird tour came to an end in 2014, Sarah was due some time off and settled into domestic life – although not as easily as she anticipated. Especially the day-to-day spousal annoyances! ‘When my husband has finished in the bathroom, I go in to powder my shit and the floor is like a leisure centre changing room: all wet and pants. The sinks are swimming. He says it’s just water; it will just evaporate. He is right, but still. TUT,’ she reported to her Standard Issue magazine. ‘And having had some time off this year and no one told me I was funny every day – I had to get used to that.’

  But it was back to business in March 2015 when she announced that she would be embarking on a new tour. It would be her longest one yet, starting in October, and called Outsider. She would be playing 176 dates around the UK plus 9 in Australia. Having just been named the hardest-working comedian in the UK from her Home Bird tour in which she travelled 14,718 miles, Sarah was out to prove she was ready for even more dates, even more laughs and ready to travel half way around the world for her fans.

  Outsider took its name, like Sarah’s other tours, from a subject about her. She explained the reasoning behind this to comedy site, Chortle. ‘You have to pick your title quite early. I always pick a title that’s about me. The first one was Sarah Millican’s Not Nice, then Typical Woman, Chatterbox, Thoroughly Modern Millican and then Home Bird and now Outsider. So they’re all about me. Outsider is about slightly meatier subjects. About feeling like you don’t belong – which is a feeling that’s commonplace, I think. We should all talk about that experience and that feeling because then we’d belong to this big group of people who don’t belong. But it’s not a heavy duty show. I also wanted to talk about moving to the country. It worked out well: if you use the word ‘outsider’ it can mean either I like being outsider – which I never really did before – or not belonging. Are comedians outsiders? Yes, we’re not misfits, but maybe a little bit odd, a little bit ‘outsidery’, often observing other people having fun rather than being in the middle of it.’

  Outsider began its run at Stockton ARC on 15 October before she travelled up and down the country for the rest of the year and early into 2016, before flying Down Under to perform in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney in early April. Then it was back to the UK for the final leg with the final shows in late September. It was her biggest and best tour yet and the critics and audiences alike loved it. Asked by Chortle about any superstitions or rituals she undertakes before heading out on stage, Sarah admitted the most important thing was to empty her bladder! ‘I wee right up to the last minute and sometimes have multiple wees. So much so that my tour manager will tell me when it’s ‘wee time’. Not, “the audience are all in and we’re ready to go,” but two minutes before that he’ll come in and say, “Wee time!” Some people like to be full of wee because it keeps them on their toes, but all I’d do is talk about wee. I have occasionally farted on stage too. And one time I was talking about farting in the show and I did fart on stage and you think, “God, I hope there’s an orchestra pit”, the front row are close enough to not know what they’re letting themselves in for. It’s a whole different level of experience, all of their senses are going to be rocking that night. And I always check my nose because if somebody’s got a bogey hanging you can’t concentrate on what they’re saying.’

  The promotion for Outsider was typically tongue-in-cheek, saying; ‘In the past when you put Sarah Millican outside, she asked things like: ‘Why? Where is the taxi? Do I need a cardie?’ and said things like: ‘There’ll be wasps. I’ve got nothing to sit on. Is that poo?’ But things have changed. Now she has outside slippers. She can tell a chaffinch from
a tit (hey). But she still can’t tell if it’s an owl or her husband’s asthma. Sarah Millican is venturing outside. Bring a cardie.’

  And just how does Sarah prepare for such a mammoth tour? It isn’t just a case of relying on her skills as a writer and hoping for the best. Before she even began Outsider, she undertook a mini tour to make sure she had the material just perfect. ‘At the beginning it’s like, ‘is it good? Will they laugh?’ I do quite a lot of warm-up gigs, then progress to ‘Sarah Millican and Friends’ nights where I do an hour with other comics as well, then an hour solid with support and then two 45 minute sets with a break in the middle,’ she told in an interview on The Phil Marriott Podcast. ‘A tour is a long time coming before you get to the start so it’s a bit of a relief when you’re on the treadmill. And it is a treadmill because it’s hard work. It’s not hard work like being a nurse – I’m well aware of that – but it’s hard work. I keep saying treadmill like I know what it’s like, I’ve never been on a treadmill!’

  All the hard work certainly paid off. Her tour was sold out in record time – including a whopping 11 dates at the Tyne Theatre and Opera House in Newcastle – and fans and critics alike were vocal in their praise for the new material. ‘Her audience loves her,’ reported The Guardian. ‘There is no-one better at mining laughs from smut and confidential sex talk. Occasionally the show’s gaze rises above the belt, notably in the sequence addressing Millican’s relocation to the country. More compelling are later routines on her body image issues and on receiving fan mail from a girl who bullied her at school. But we are never far from another crack about warm dog poo or Millican’s piles. She might have moved geographically, but Millican’s not budging an inch comedically.’

  The Telegraph were equally praising of her 90 minute set, reviewed when she performed in front of 3500 fans at the Hammersmith Eventim Apollo. ‘Millican used to be able to capitalise on the comedic contrast between her demure, butter-wouldn’t-melt appearance and the weapons-grade fifth of some of her material. That’s more difficult to pull off now she is so well-known but a spectacularly off-colour gag about pensioners and oral sex still manages to draw delighted shrieks from the fans.’

  Sarah was in her element. She loved doing her shows, she loved meeting people and she didn’t see the year-long tour as hard work at all – even though her voice sometimes suffered. ‘I am relieved it went really well, we sold lots of tickets, had lots of full rooms and saw lots of lovely theatres,’ she told Chronicle Online. ‘We only had one show that we had to cancel one where I lost my voice and we had to move it to another date but that’s quite impressive really, in a whole year, to have only had to cancel one. I worry about my voice. When I am talking for 2 hours for 5 or 6 nights a week for a year, it’s terrifying thinking you could lose your voice. Without it, I am nothing! I saw a coach who gave me some exercise which I do every day to make sure I still have a voice.’

  And there were no mishaps or embarrassing moments on stage either, you know, walking out with toilet paper stuck to her shoe or something! ‘I have a tour manager who I hope would tell me if my skirt was tucked into my knickers. And I also wear leggings, I think it’s dangerous territory to have bare legs. I look alright I think, I don’t want people to laugh at the wrong things!’

  Her audience had shifted too and perhaps in the past where she attracted an older, female audience, the people that came to see her on tour varied greatly. ‘People always assume my audience is entirely female but that’s not the case at all, I would say generally it’s about 50/50 or 60/40 women. Couples come and multi-generational groups come - like a girl, her mam and her grandma and then the young one worries what their grandma will think but Grandma actually knows more what I’m talking about! Gender isn’t always relevant in my show, I know a lot of blokes who have done things that I have done. And my audience aren’t really drinkers either,’ she told HMV.com. ‘They get mad if there isn’t any ice cream, but booze not so much. They are more tea drinkers, they’ll bring a flask from home.’

  The tour was a massive success and there was further good news in November when the Outsider DVD was released and went straight to the top of the charts, knocking Billy Connolly’s High Horse Live into second place. So what did Sarah make of the tour? During her podcast interview with Phil Marriott she explained why she thought it was her best show yet – even though it was her longest. ‘Am I tempted to do less dates in bigger venues? No, arenas aren’t for me. They’re OK if you move away from the mic stand but I don’t. I love the theatres that we play and I love doing my job and I want to do it loads which is why I end up on tour for a year. It was longest one I’ve done but it was fun, it’s my favourite thing to do. So if something is long, but you still love it, that’s alright isn’t it?’

  Sarah was excited about promoting the DVD, which she saw as the final ‘hurrah’ of the tour and rounded off the show quite neatly. ‘The show has been with me for quite a while,’ she revealed to Phil. ‘I write it in dribs and drabs and then I start working on it properly, then we get it ready and take it on tour for a year and now I get to show it on DVD to the people who’ve seen it and want to see it again or people who didn’t get chance to come and see it. My tours are always about me, what I am up to now. Some comics this year have done ‘the best of’ shows but I can’t really do that with mine as I work in quite a chronological order so when you come to see me it’s more of an update on what my life is at the moment. It’s like a really arrogant diary really.’

  Like every aspect of her show, Sarah liked to get involved in the construction of the DVD, having the final say on the extras that are included and where the filming takes place. ‘The show was recorded in Brighton, it’s a great venue. It has three different buildings, you work your way up as a comic from performing at the Pavillion, then the Corn Exchange and then you have the Dome and that is where we filmed it,’ she told the Chronicle Live. ‘You could arguably record the show anywhere you want to but I have played in Brighton for years and it’s a really good place to hang out too. Between shoots we could go and walk the dog on the beach so from a selfish point of view, I wanted to pick somewhere I like. It’s important that everything is as good as it can be. I like to be in control of things, in life and as well as the DVD. I’m a terrible back seat driver/pilot/doctor.’

  With Christmas coming up, the tour now finished and the DVD promotion complete, Sarah was able to relax a bit and put her feet up. Well, sort of. She wasn’t one to rest easily!

  ‘I am having some time off after this tour, because my tours are always about me, I do have to live a bit otherwise I am just writing about staying in hotels and driving on motorways and nobody needs to hear that,’ she also revealed to Phil. ‘I am going to have a few months off work, live a bit, have a bit of a normal life I suppose. I am a bit of a workaholic though and I need someone to say to me, ‘we are not allowing you to do any work!’ I like my job. I am looking forward to Christmas although I’m not one of these people who puts up their Christmas tree mid November. When the shops shut on Christmas Eve and you think, well whatever we haven’t got we’ll just have to live without it – I quite like that bit. There is no pressure. At Christmas I do a thing on Twitter called ‘join in’ where we get everyone who is on their own and doesn’t want to be, to use the hashtag of ‘#joinin’ and they can all have a conversation with each other and it makes everyone a little less lonely. We’ve done it for 6 years, I love it.’

  And what about the future? Well there is good news folks, Sarah is already in the middle of writing her next show. In fact, she started working on it during her Outsider tour because she when it comes to her work, she can’t get enough. ‘I have probably written half an hour of the next show already because I don’t like that panic of when it comes to writing, sitting in front of a blank screen,’ she told Chronicle Online. ‘I do a low-level of writing constantly, I am always scribbling. It’s going pretty well. I am taking it easy, working from home which counterbalances the fact that I haven’t been a
t home for a while. Like people who work for 5 days and then have 2 days off, but I just do it in bigger chunks I suppose.’

  Talking of big and chunky things… Sarah was, at the beginning of 2017, looking decidedly un-big and not chunky. Photos she posted to her Instagram account showed bowls of healthy snacks and eaten bowls of fruit that she titled her ‘writing snacks’. Having previously always been happy to admit she had a good appetite and ate what she liked, she was now taking control of her diet and embarking on a new healthy lifestyle. Well, sort of. Her snaps of fruit were also punctuated with snaps of more, er, unhealthy snacks and Sarah admitted to the Mail Online that actually, despite media speculation to the contrary, she wasn’t wasting away at all. ‘They reported that I’ve managed a dramatic weight loss. I have never been fatter and I am happy. When I read it, I thought, “Oh, I have let everybody down!”’

  So what is the biggest lesson she thinks she has learnt from being a comedian? Simple, really, she says: ‘laughing can fix anything.’ Or to elaborate a little more, she told Chortle. ‘It can’t ‘fix’ anything, but it can temporarily fix things. And while I love to make people laugh, I also love to laugh. Laughing is a massive release and relief. It’s very good for you to laugh. If I’m the only person laughing in the room I don’t give a shit. I can be howling and I don’t care if other people aren’t laughing because it’s so subjective. I just laugh.’

  And let’s hope that never changes Sarah…

  In 2008 Sarah took to the stage for one of her first high-profile gigs at the Royal Albert Hall as part of Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman ball.

  © Ian West/PA Archive/PA Images

  Sarah’s show ‘Not Nice’ was a huge success at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008, winning her a nomination for The Intelligent Finance Best Newcomer Award. She would return to the Festival a number of times.