Comedian Harriet Kemsley has revealed how her parents told her to try stand-up comedy.
She talked about her background and new tour on the podcast Outsiding, hosted by Caitlin Moran and Adam Frost.
“I grew up on a farm, so my parents had no connection [to comedy], but it was my parents that suggested it. I was doing, like, acting bits and starting to do, like, bits of writing, but I just kind of didn't make the connection that it was comedy that I loved. But they watched Live at the Apollo one night and the next day they called me and they were like 'we think you should try stand up.'
I was 23 and I was like, that is crazy. Like it just was a whole world that was so different to me. I'd never seen anyone really like me or it would never have occurred to me. And they were like 'stupid things happen to you and you just have funny stories about them, and we think this could be a way of doing it.' And so they were like, just don't tell anyone, go and do it, and I did and it was, yeah.”
“I feel so lucky. Also like other comics are like oh you know like my parents wanted me to a doctor or whatever and mine are like 'we've got no hope. It's gonna have to be comedy, I don't know it's definitely not gonna be a doctor or anything useful.'”
Kemsley's new tour is called Floozy: “I don't know. I just think it's a funny word. It's like a fun, funny word. And it's about this kind of stage of life that I'm at, which I never thought I'd be in, which is that I'm in my late 30s. I've got a divorce, and so I'm kind of single and dating. And I'm trying to have this like fun, floozy energy. But I think it's probably the same with gardening, where I just I get very attached and like to control things. And so it's trying not to be like that and to enjoy where I am with my daughter and life."
Kemsley also talked about how she appeared on Celebrity Mastermind but couldn't do her chosen subject because another comic had already done it: "I was doing Mastermind and they said, ‘What subject would you like to do?’ And I wanted to do the American Office because if you pick like one season from it, then it's like a great thing to do, you do a TV series, and my new enemy Rhys James had done it the year before so I couldn't do it so they were like just send things you like.
So I was like Pizza Express, sloths, and they came back and they were like 'great you're gonna do sloths' and I was like 'oh no' because the reality was I had to learn all the Latin names of sloths, all the history of sloths, it was like, it became a full-time job learning about sloths. And it was so stressful and then on the day like the sloth thing actually went really well but the other the problem is you also have to do general knowledge and that's a lifetime's work.”
Tour details here.
Outsiding is available on all podcast providers and YouTube.
Picture credit: Cold Glass Productions
