Last night at the 2017 Funny Women Awards we announced Naomi Sheldon’s Good Girl as the winner of our Best Show category! This award is voted for by you, the audience and you voted overwhelmingly for Good Girl, saying the show was “not only hilarious but also moving. An astute and refreshing story about some of the very common and very harsh truths about growing up, and being a woman.” We spoke to Naomi about her win and the show…
Funny Women: How does it feel to win the 2017 Funny Women Best Show Award?
Naomi Sheldon: A complete dream. Overwhelming. It makes me incredibly proud of all the women that helped to make the show a success and who have supported the show during its incredible journey. Seeing women responding so viscerally to seeing themselves reflected in the show and then encouraging their community to see it has shown me how powerful a community of women can be. We can make shit happen. And it’s our time.
FW: What is your show Good Girl about?
NS: Good Girl is a darkly comic show about the intense and peculiar difficulties many of us faced growing up in the 90s whilst trying to be accepted, liked and loved. It’s about feeling like a freak because of big emotions and learning how to stop apologising for who you are. It’s about friendship, and witchcraft and sex and ABBA.
FW: What inspired the Good Girl?
NS: Seeing Bridget Christie’s Edinburgh show Mortal (which was at that point becoming Because You Demanded It) in 2016 inspired me to write a show about passion and rage and big feelings. I thought ‘YES!’ this woman is furious and funny, furiously funny and she’s being applauded for it – when was the last time I saw a woman being admired for her rage and sheer explosive emotion? I remembered all the times I was growing up being told I was ‘too much’, ‘too sensitive’, ‘too intense’ and I knew I wanted to write a show that blew apart those labels that are so often applied to women.
FW: Where can we see your show?
NS: Good Girl is running at Trafalgar Studios 2 until the 31st of March
FW: Who are your favourite funny women?
NS: Bridget Christie, of course, Sara Pascoe, Desiree Burch, Mae Martin, Roisin Conaty, Michaela Coel, Zoe Coombs Marr, Hannah Gadsby – all hail the queen, Julia Davis, and Victoria Wood. This is just a few… I could fill a page.
