comedy feature
Fringe Face Off
Amy Dowd chats to Joanna Neary about cooking, mending and what it’s like being a female comedian.
Upon seeing Joanna Neary’s show this year, what struck me most was not only her showmanship as a brilliantly entertaining comedienne, but also her ability to pull so many weird and wonderful faces, as if her face were made of plasticine. It is this skill, along with her physical ability to transform from character to character in a blink of an eye, that create such an engaging and hilarious performance.
I caught up with her over a cup of tea and the first thing I noticed was her appealing grunge style. “I refuse to buy any more clothes, I have too many and am currently really into mending and sewing. If I wasn’t in this industry I’d have a mending stall in the corner of a market; I’d make a fortune with the credit crunch and all.” But when she hasn’t been busy darning, she’s been putting together a new show and I wanted to discuss how she was feeling about it. “It’s all a bit more theatrical this year. I’ve got much more of a set and twelve new characters” she explained. These characters range from a sex toy expert to a skit on Celia Johnson in ‘Brief Encounter’, but my particular favourite has to be Joanna’s talking dolphin.
As Joan Rivers – with her distinctively ballsy, female stance – is completely selling out at the Fringe, I decided to ask Joanna how being a woman has affected her work and whether she has come up against any barriers in her career. “I think there seems to be two different comedy circuits; there’s Jongleurs and The Comedy Store that’s quite fierce, you know, people heckling and shouting and you’ve got to be quite ballsy. Then there’s our circuit with Robin Ince’s Book Club and Josie Long, and it’s just so much gentler. None of what we do is about being a man or a woman; it’s not deliberately about either. I haven’t been married, I don’t have any children, I don’t have those things to talk about. It’s kind of like we’re outsiders, but we belong for the first time. It makes no difference that I’m a woman, it really isn’t an issue. I think it’s more of an issue for the audience. It really doesn’t bother me because I do male characters and animal characters and none of them are making a point of being a woman.”
Given her recent success in ‘Ideal’ alongside Jonny Vegas, I wanted to ask Joanna which medium she preferred working in. “TV’s really exciting, because it’s new to me, but with theatre you get an immediate indication of whether you’re doing well or not, whereas in TV if you’re doing well, no-one really says anything.” Does she have any major comic influences? “Well, I really love Hancock and Victoria Wood – I really like ‘Still Game’ – it’s a brilliant Glaswegian sitcom. ‘Father Ted’ is very funny and I love the American ‘Office’; Steve Carrell is wonderful. I used to really love Pete Sellers when I was little but then I found out he was a bit of a bastard.”
Plans for the next year? “I’m going to concentrate on writing and I’d really like to tour my show; maybe a best of. Will I be back to Edinburgh next year? Mmm maybe; I’ve just done three years in a row and I absolutely love doing my show but it can get a little bit lonely on your own. So I’d love to put on my first play about fairies and a postman; it’s a nice little play that I’ve written. It would be nice to have more people with me. At the moment I cook apple crumbles in the evening and visit the charity shops in the day.”
Quick fire Round
Q: French or Saunders?
A: Saunders
Q: Stand-up or sitcom?
A: Stand-up
Q: Pint down your local or
A: Mojito in a cocktail bar?
A: Pint down my local
Q: Prada or Primark?
A: Prada
Q: Glass half full or half empty?
A: Half full
Q: Cats or dogs?
A: Dogs
Q: Knickers or thongs?
A: Knickers
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Joanna Neary’s 'Magic Hole' was on at Assembly @ George Square.
published: Oct-2008
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