Leicester Comedy Festival Interview: Zoe Lyons

We love Zoe Lyons, you should love Zoe Lyons. To prove how awesome she is here is our interview with her. We talk about the attractive qualities of Alec Baldwin, what makes Zoe Swagger and the Saudi Arabian lesbian cabaret.

David: So, we’re going to start with the Leicester Comedy Festival, as you’ve been here a couple of times now. What do you think of the festival and what are you looking forward to?

Zoe: Yeah I’ve done it for a couple of years running and I love it. It’s got a very nice, homely feel to it. The first year I did a solo show there and I did it in a really small room over a couple of nights and I got about 20 to 30 people in and I went back again last year and, you know, it’d grown. I think people follow you at Leicester and it’s nice that people come back and see you, so I’m looking forward to coming back this year and doing well numbers wise again.

David: Definitely. I saw you in Leicester last year and your room was packed.

Zoe: Yeah it was nice wasn’t it? It was really lovely. It’s always a little bit of a gamble doing the festivals, you wonder if people will come along and it’s so nice to be told ‘’oh you’ve sold out’’, it’s fantastic! I thoroughly enjoyed doing the show last year so I’m really up for it this year.

David: What can people expect from your new tour?

Zoe: Well the show this year is called Miss Machismo and it’s very loosely themed, but it is themed- it’s the element of swagger that people sometimes have, and I think you should embrace it and enjoy it. I talk about a couple of things that gave me a sense of swagger over the last 12 months, one of them being slagged off by Germaine Greer.

David: I was gonna ask you about that.

Zoe: Yeah, she described one of my jokes as being astonishingly vicious, which of course is a massive compliment coming from Germaine Greer, so I think I took it a different way then she intended. So I was chuffed to bits to be described as astonishingly vicious by her, as she also mentioned Joan Rivers as being astonishingly vicious, so I thought I’ve made it, I’ve made it into the same census as Joan Rivers, so I can die happy.

David: That’s quite an achievement! What was the joke?.

Zoe: The joke was an Amy Winehouse joke I’d done the year before in Edinburgh, and the joke was Amy Winehouse, I find her kind of irritating, I don’t know why that woman has to self harm, I can’t believe she can’t find somebody to do it for her- it’s a bit of a dark joke (both laugh). But I did back it up by saying that it was a joke about my dislike of Amy Winehouse, not a joke about self harm.

David: There’s always talk about female comedians and it being more difficult for them. Do you find that’s the case, especially if you have got Germaine Greer who kind of sees the bitchiness but maybe isn’t there?

Zoe: Well comments like hers do help, but you know, it’s an age old, quite boring argument and you do hear it now and again, it’ll be funny and that sort of thing. To be honest with you I just kind of ignore it and get on with it. People have some very peculiar beliefs (laughs). People turn up with some very peculiar beliefs about all sorts of different things and there will always be those people that think comedy is reserved for blokes in pubs telling jokes to each other and women can’t tell jokes and women can’t find things amusing. And it’s like, well we do make up 50% of the population and look at the stuff that’s on TV at the moment- Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, I don’t know if you’ve watched it?

David: Oh I have, it’s brilliant. I only just discovered it a couple of weeks ago.

Zoe: Yeah, it’s just brilliant. I love Alec Baldwin in it, he’s just so wrong.

David: There’s something unhinged about the man.

Zoe: There is isn’t there? That’s what’s so attractive about him, I mean I know he’s bonkers, but he is brilliantly funny. So no, the argument about women not being funny… You do get it, you do, but, you know, you just get on with it don’t you?

David:  Do you ever find yourself being marginalised even more because of being a gay and a woman?

Zoe: Erm, yes. This is interesting. I had an interview with somebody over the phone a few days ago, they called me up from a newspaper in Wales- I think she was having a bad day, she was quite curt on the phone. She just came out with it, she said, ‘’so, when do you think you’ll be able to drop the lesbian comedian tag?’’ . You know when you just think ‘’you bitch’’? Literally, that’s not a tag I use, that’s a tag lady journalists use. I’m a lesbian, I mention it on stage- only cos it’s part of my life, but that’s really about it. Do I find it difficult being a lesbian comedian? No. I mean, if I went on stage and talked for an hour simply about gay issues, then they’d have every right to label me ‘the lesbian comedian’, do you know what I mean, because that would be the sole topic of my conversation, but it’s not. It features because it’s part of my life. And if I’m talking about my partner or the fact that I prefer camping equipment to children, that sort of thing, that’s just how it features. But I don’t really talk about it so much. I think my materials fairly… It’s not even gender specific, it’s just stupid stuff.

David: Do you think that makes you more successful then if you are just talking about your life and you go out with not really an agenda of ‘I’m a woman’ or ‘I’m gay’?

Zoe: Yeah, I certainly wouldn’t call it an agenda. Sometimes I don’t feel wholly comfortable in my own skin, so I don’t have this balls- out, kind of ‘yay’ style- I have insecurities as well and I prefer just to talk about stuff. Like, I really hope it doesn’t matter what side of the fence you’re sitting on

David: Where do you get your inspiration from then?  Is it just through eavesdropping and conversations, or do you think you just have a particularly funny life that you want to tell people about?

Zoe: I don’t know where the inspiration came from. It’s very difficult, stand- up, often to write the material. It comes in stops and starts. Sometimes you go for months without anything and you’re like ‘’ooh I haven’t had a thought in months’’, and then other times you’ll wake up at like three in the morning and think ‘’oh that’s quite funny, I’ll write that down’’. And it really doesn’t flow out of me, it just stops and starts and writing things on Post- it notes. If I’m doing an Edinburgh show, like the show I’m doing in Leicester, it helps if you have a theme and that sort of focuses and concentrates the mind a bit more. Also it is just stuff you hear, stuff people say to you. You spend a lot of time on your own, a really unglamorous life, so you do have a lot of time to sort of wander round and observe things.

And service stations. These motorway service stations are like these tragic little hubs of humanity. They really are, just tragic little ham sandwich rolls of depression. I hate them. I hate them and love them and I quite enjoy the melancholy of it now. I like going into restaurants and eating on my own- you always get that look of ‘’aww’’. I did a gig recently for students in Sheffield and I had to kill 12 hours in Sheffield, which is not an easy job, cos I’d done the gig the night before and I had a gig the following night and I had a lot of time to kill in between. So I went to two restaurants on my own and I went to the cinema on my own and I said to the students that night ‘’would you do that?’’ and they were all just like ‘’no! You’d have to be a total loser!’’. In fact that’s what I’m gonna write my next show about, the next show’s going to be about losers and how brilliant it is to be a loser.

David: Are you ever afraind of going on stage- up, why did you do it?

Zoe: Because the fear of not doing it became greater then the fear of doing it. I was 30 before I started and I was waitressing- I’d been to drama schools and done bits and bobs. But basically, I was slinging plates for a living, and I got to 30 and all of a sudden it dawned on me if I don’t do something, if I don’t at least try and tackle this fear I might be 60 and still slinging plates. All of a sudden the fear of not doing it became bigger than the fear of actually doing it.

David: So how did you then start?

Zoe: I wrote five minutes of utter shit and I took it to a little café in North London and I did five minutes of utter shit. But it went quite well, I think just because I was so pleased to be actually doing it. I felt like the fastest loser that night. I was just like, it might be crap but I’m doing it. Then after that I did other gigs and other five minute open spots and within four months I was doing four or five open spots a week in London cos you can. And then within six months I gave up my waitressing job and I was earning a pittance, but I was earning my pittance on doing stand- up.

David: What has been your worst gig?

Zoe: I had a shocker last Saturday. I had a proper, proper stinker. It was the worst gig I’ve had for a long time.

David: One final question. So what can we expect from you in the future? Are you doing Edinburgh this year?

Zoe: I’m not doing Edinburgh this year. I’m taking a year off from Edinburgh. Simply because I just want a year away from it. But I am hopefully gonna have a new show by the end of the year. No, not hopefully sorry, I am gonna have a new show by the end of the year . I’m doing the tour. Then I’m actually going away for quite a few months, working abroad as well this year. I’ve got the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand all lined up.

David: The Middle East?

Zoe: Yeah, they do this tour out there- it’s all ex- pat gigs.

David: Oh ok… didn’t really match what I had in my head (laughs).

Zoe: Yeah, the Saudi Arabian lesbian cabaret. Run girls run!

David: You could give it a go- it would give you a niche.

And there you have it. You can catch Zoe at these various places:

20th Feb – LEICESTER, The Firebug  and you can book tickets here.

27th Feb – PONTARDAWE, Pontardawe Arts Centre

5th Mar – DUNDEE, Dundee Rep Theatre

21st Mar – BATH, The Cavern

24th Mar – CRANLEIGH, Cranleigh Arts Centre

26th Mar – GLASGOW, Blackfriars

27th Mar – ABERDEEN, Lemon Tree

29th Mar – CANTERBURY, The Gulbenkian

8th April – LONDON, The Bloomsbury

13th April – CAMBRIDGE, The Junction

17th April – LEEDS, The Adelphi

18th April – LEEDS, The Adelphi

3rd June – MILTON KEYNES, The Stables

11th June – DERBY, Assembly Rooms

13th June – MANCHESTER, The Frog & Bucket

26th June – BUILTH WELLS, Wyeside Arts Centre

30th July – NORWICH, Norwich Playhouse