MARION SAUVEBOIS talks to comedienne Sara Pascoe about the many splendoured thing

SARA Pascoe has been thinking a lot about love recently.

Her new touring show, Sara Pascoe vs History, explores some of the greatest love stories ever told.

No, not Jordan and Peter, Posh ‘n’ Becks or Wills and Kate, but the timeless ones such as Joséphine and Napoleon, Adam and Eve and, um, Eva and Adolf.

“She was in love with him for years before he would even agree to be seen with her in public,” explained Pascoe. “And they got married just before their joint suicide at the end: that’s a love story of sorts.

“Napoleon and Joséphine would be up there; his love letters were said to be among the most romantic ever written but it turned really tragic as he divorced her because she was in her 40s and couldn’t give him any children. He needed an heir but couldn’t stay with his best friend and the woman he really loved.

“And there’s the idea of Adam and Eve having rows in Eden because there’s no one else to talk to. So when the snake shows up, she thinks ‘thank God for that, it’s just been Adam every day’.”

Being among the best of her stand-up generation certainly wasn’t something Sara imagined for herself at a young age.

“I definitely wasn’t funny as a child and my mum backs that up. I was very earnest, loved animals a lot and cried all the time.

“When I was 14, I did amateur dramatics because I wanted to be an actor, but my mum took me aside and said ‘Sara, you’ll never make it as an actor, you cry too much’. But actually, crying’s really helpful: it shows that you’re passionate and you care.”

At the age of 18, Pascoe tried to get into drama school but couldn’t quite get over the line anywhere and ended up studying English Literature at Sussex University where she did begin to appear on stage.

“I wanted to do dramatic Chekhov pieces or Sarah Kane plays but I was always cast in comedies, which really annoyed me. I thought comedy was very easy and cheap.

“In 2006 I was in a sketch show which was all about topical stuff and it gave me a chance to write. Then I tried stand-up for the first time. I certainly had no plans for it to be my career but it rather assiduously took over my life and I’m now a comedy obsessive.”

That growing obsession carried her through her first open spots and on to the Hackney Empire in January 2008 where she appeared in their new act competition with a belief that she would do well.

She has since combined an increasingly impressive stand-up CV with appearing on panel shows such as Mock The Week and QI and acting in comedies such as The Thick Of It and Campus.

Although she has ambitions to write a novel and may well have a stab at penning a semi-autobiographical sitcom one day, live comedy is where she gets her creative buzz right now.

“I once thought that it would be very easy to make people laugh but it’s all about alchemy and magic. It’s not even an exact science, because you can have all the right ingredients but sometimes it just doesn’t work.

“Yet sometimes you can be in tune with it and you can improvise and it all works. At that point, it can be a really powerful thing.”

Just like love, really.

 

  • Sara Pascoe is at the Arts Centre in Devizes Road, Swindon, on December 4 at 8pm. Tickets are £12.50. To book or for more details go to swindontheatres.co.uk or call 01793 524481.