I’ve been in comedy competition finals before. Heck, I’ve got enough bottles of brew to keep me tipsy for a year from being runner up in the Somerset Stand Up for Cider contest. Competitions are fun. Mostly.
I say ‘mostly’ because so many are in noisy pubs with no green room and with competitors who are cliquey and don’t make you feel that welcome. Many shows start and run late so, if there’s a train to catch, you end up panicking and quite a few are ‘gong shows’ where just one person has to decide ‘no’ and you’re out. As someone performing in her dog collar, those aren’t an ideal gig for me!
The winners are usually decided by the audience and, if you’re scheduled to go on first (which for some reason, I nearly always am), then the judges are not even tipsy when they see you. That’s in contrast to being deliciously warmed up by the time the second-halfers come on. In the Cider contest, the winner told me that in more than a decade he’d never ever seen an opening act placed, so that was seriously encouraging!
What’s also typical is that I’m generally the only woman in the final — not to mention the oldest by about 20 years.
But what is not normal — for me at least — is a competition final that’s beautifully organized, peopled with talented, supportive women and where you genuinely, genuinely know that although winning would be great, it’s the taking part that matters.
Is this all in praise of Funny Women? Yes it is. But, being a vicar and all that, I’m honour-bound not to write it if I don’t genuinely believe it. Schmoozing is not permitted in the day job.
Oh I had such fun! This year’s Funny Women Awards finals was just the best experience. We started with the chance to have a make-over from Benefit Cosmetics, a shared lunch and a photo-shoot in London (and they even paid my expenses to traipse up from the wilds of Dartmoor where parishes have more sheep than people).
We were all asked to wear pink which caused some minor anguish as we’re not generally ‘pretty in pink’ types of women but we all came up with something and I could still wear my dog-collar underneath which stopped the bishop from having a heart attack.
Posing together in the street for the pictures gave me the chance to tell interested passers-by that it was a photo-shoot to celebrate my daughters by seven different men. That was a lot easier for them to believe than a 59-year-old vicar being in a top London comedy final…
On the night itself, we had a sell-out audience at the Kings Place Theatre in London complete with dressing rooms, green room and large screen TV so we could watch each other perform. Full make-up and hair styling were given by the sponsors Benefit Cosmetics. I liked my hair. A lot. Even though my husband thought it made me look like Margo Leadbetter. Food and drink were provided too and we felt truly part of a major event including all the differing awards that Funny Women offers as well as a fundraiser for Refuge.
We had posh programmes that we could give to our Mums to show their friends at the hairdresser’s (in the vain hope that they might actually consider comedy as being a ‘proper job’) and freebie cosmetics from Benefit Cosmetics, most of which have already been nicked by friends and family.
But better than that, we had a group of 10 women competing without a snap, a bitch or a hissy fit. So often you are told that women are rotten to each other; maybe sometimes it’s true. But not here. I have never had such a sweet and supportive gig and I genuinely believe that I have made at least three long-term friends.
We hugged, we listened to each other rehearsing, we fed each other with home-made cake, we encouraged, we met each other off the stage to congratulate, we laughed, we danced, we played and we celebrated. We even had a little ceremony of blessing beforehand (they asked – honest, they did!).
As for the judges — wow! What a powerhouse of people. Truly, just to get to perform in front of them was a privilege. They included the commissioning editor for Channel 4 comedy; the head of BBC radio comedy; the deputy arts editor for The Independent; and the development executive for Sky. And three-quarters of them were women.
Thank you to Lynne, for starting all this fun. Please let us know what we can do in return to support Funny Women. Thank you to Kerry Godliman, the wonderful host — who, like Sarah Millican didn’t win either and who is doing very well indeed, thank you. Thank you to last year’s winner, Jayde Adams, who said something possibly unintentionally very wise to me before the gig which shifted my focus. Thank you everyone from Benefit Cosmetics. Thank you to my family who finally managed to get slightly impressed by something that I’d done. Thank you to Desiree Burch, Sarah Keyworth and Helen Monk for raising the bar for all future contests. Thank you to my bishop who was the scariest person to tell that I’d taken up comedy but who just said, “Fantastic. Didn’t you know that the Angel of Mirth stands closest to the throne of God?” and who calls me his ‘Fool for God’ and thank you to my lovely husband, Lion, who is all that is kind and supportive.
Ooh, look! I got to do the winner’s ‘thank-yous’ even though I was the one who went on first.
