Divorce was the Making of Sarah Millican

So many women will tell you that divorce changed their lives, and their perspective on the world and gave them a licence to start living again. They will then return home to sob into a microwave dinner for one as they chug down a cheap glass, or two, of red, wondering where exactly it was that life went so wrong.

For Sarah Millican, however, divorce really did mean a new beginning. The miserable times that divorce thrust upon her were to become her muse, as she turned to comedy as a means of therapy, and as it turns out, she’s rather good at it!

The quiet child who had always taken a back seat in class, preferring the company of teachers to her peers, in the comfortable knowledge that “they were middle aged friends who didn’t want to come round for tea“, suddenly, found herself standing in front of a small, expectant crowd in a musty room in the North East pouring out her most personal woes in the form of a monologue.

And the response? Laughter! And if her performance on that first night was anything like her more recently acclaimed shows, then not merely laughter but hysterics. Sarah Millican had found her vocation. She was a comedian. I am reluctant to use the politically correct ‘comedienne’ equivalent as Sarah is keen to highlight the inferiority that the feminine form affords to a word, “It’s like being a smurfette! You’re not quite as good as a smurf somehow“.

Sarah admits to always having displayed a creative streak, “I used to perform poetry for my parents’ friends“, though it appears to have been dogged by a coy disposition “but only from behind the curtains“. That coyness is still evident in her delicately polite mannerisms that accompany her soft Geordie lilt. You could be forgiven for mistaking her for a primary school teacher or a nurse with an unfaltering bedside manner.

Sarah’s delightful demeanour allows me to feel totally at ease when I meet her just before she is due to perform at Newcastle city hall. She apologises for her lateness, even though she is exactly on time and draws my attention to the pretty dress she’s put on for the occasion, before leading me up to the gallery where we sit for a chat.

I assumed she’d be a bag of nerves, performing in front of a home crowd, but she assures me that everywhere in England is, in essence, the same and the only thing that she is nervous about is performing her set in front of her dad, who’s going to be in the audience, and who she invites me to sit with. I assume at this point that she is merely keen to impress her father and that this is the cause of her nerves, even though she has pointed out to me that her sets can be “a bit rude“.

I truly could not imagine that rude could be her style. It’s the incongruity of her sweet demeanour and the element of crudity that has the crowd in stitches. I knew that her divorce was a rich source of material and that she would draw upon real life conversations with her comedian boyfriend but what I wasn’t expecting was her opening story detailing an encounter with a young couple in a supermarket and her inspection of their basket, which revealed only a bottle of wine and a cucumber. She ingeniously drew upon her apparent innocence when she described her misconception of the situation, suggesting that by no means had they gathered all the ingredients required for a Caesar salad. The audience roared with laughter.

She then displayed her ribald side simply by adding “Lube. I should have suggested she buy some lube.” concluding with “But, she had to learn the hard way.”

She left the audience only able to expect the unexpected, which side of her juxtaposed character would show up next?

When chatting I had quizzed Sarah on how she responds to hecklers. I was impressed to see her in action when a middle aged man at the back tried to match her wit with jokes of his own. “Oh! You’re a bit weird aren’t you?” she retorted. “You know when someone’s a bit weird but still strangely attractive?” She put to the audience allowing for a pause, “Erm. No!” He soon shut up.

Sarah feels so lucky to have found a vocation that she truly enjoys. “It’s the best job in the world!“ She beamed. Comedy comes naturally to her, “It’s not hard” She tells me “I mean, it’s not McMillan nurses hard.” She regards the constant travel as the real effort. And Sarah Millican is travelling up and down the country armed with comic material that will leave you in stitches and by no means is she the token female in a line up, Sarah Millican steals the show and is well worth watching.

Sarah's upcoming gigs can be found at www.chambersmgt.com/shows

Posted Fri, 05/02/2008 - 15:33 by Abi Mowbray