Laura Smyth

What makes somebody “born aggy” rather than temporarily annoyed?

When you look at your childhood pictures and you’ve just got an absolute mood on all the time, I think it’s that sort of thing. I’m always annoyed, things get on my nerves, and I like ranting about them. I think I’ve always been like that.

I’ve always been quite highly strung, and now I’m looking at my own children stomping about the place and thinking, “Oh, maybe this is genetic.”

“I’m always annoyed, things get on my nerves, and I like ranting about them.”

At what point did you realise bluntness was becoming your comedy voice rather than just your personality?

Like anything, sometimes you don’t know what you’re like until you see yourself reflected back. Even when I was doing teacher training, one of my lecturers said I was pugnacious. I remember thinking, “I’m not pugnacious. I’ll hit you for saying that.”

I think I’m quite chill, but actually I do see life as a bit of a battle, and I’ve battled through it a little bit. That’s probably given me some tough edges. I like cutting through on a punchline hard. There’s nothing particularly soft about my approach. Other than it being funny, I suppose that’s what softens the edges.

You often sound like somebody permanently negotiating with the world rather than peacefully existing in it — is that fair?

Yeah, I talk about it on the tour, actually. I’ve married such a nice man, and my husband says a couple of things to me. One is that not everything has a solution. I like maths, and even when I liked English, I liked the idea that X equals something. I want solutions. I want to solve things.

I’m trying to learn that not everything has a solution. You can’t solve the world’s problems, and you can’t always solve your kids’ problems either. I do like to think I can win at something sometimes, but actually sometimes there isn’t a race.

The other thing my husband says to me is, “Tread lightly.” He says, “Just try and tread lightly,” as I stomp out of the house ready to go.

Did teaching prepare you well for stand-up, or emotionally destroy you for it?

The main parallel between teaching and stand-up is that when you first start stand-up, you’re saying, “Here are my jokes and I’d like you to enjoy them.” When you first start teaching, you’re saying, “Here is my lesson that I have prepared and I’d like you to learn.”

But as you become more experienced as a teacher and more experienced as a stand-up, you realise the jokes and the lesson are only part of it. The main thing is to meet your class or your audience where they are. To really be present, meet them where they are, and take them to wherever they need to go.

There’s a lot of love and care in teaching if you want to be a good teacher, and there’s a lot of love and care in stand-up. As much as I talk about being blunt or Aggy and all those sorts of things, I love my audiences. Even hecklers are just an ADHD kid who wants attention, do you know what I mean? I’d rather give them their due care and attention and bring them with me. I love it. I love the craft.

“I love my audiences. Even hecklers are just an ADHD kid who wants attention.”

It must instil a good backbone in you as well, being a teacher and a comedian?

The resilience of teaching and the confidence it gives you is phenomenal.

Your first tour exploded far beyond expectations — how strange was that to live through?

It was just fantastic. You have no measure of it. I’ve got so many comedian friends who do their first tour, and you phone each other because you’re not sure. You’re trusting the tour team to put it on, and it was so exciting when things started selling out. Especially in London, we went from Leicester Square to bigger rooms. We ended up playing Birmingham twice, and seeing the rooms get bigger was just fantastic. You’ve got no real measure of how your audience is going to respond until you put tickets on sale. I loved it. Again, it comes back to respecting the audience. I feel like a small business and they’ve bought my little candles that I make. Every ticket sold, every ticket update, I really wanted to put on a good show and honour the fact that people had spent their hard-earned money to come and see me.

Has success changed your relationship with ambition?

It has. I only really had ambition when I had my eldest daughter. I don’t think I knew what I wanted for myself. I was 20 when I had her, and I had so much ambition for her that becoming a teacher felt like such a nice, solid thing to give her.

[At this point, Laura spots Ralph wandering into view.]

Oh my God, I’m in love with your dog.

Sorry, that’s my daughter’s dog, Ralph.

Is that Ralph?

Yeah.

Beautiful.

She inspired me so much. Then, having more children, I realised I wanted to be the fullest expression of myself so I could model that for them. That was no longer in teaching, it was in the creative life.

Actually, every level up, every bit of success, every bit of telly, bigger tours — it requires a new version of yourself. That’s why you’re changed by it. You want more, and you need to be more to meet those demands. That’s what the journey’s been, and I love it.

How much of your comedy comes from frustration rather than observation?

I think they’re in equal measure. I love the phrase that says every joke is a small revolution, because you’re saying, “You’re allowed to think like this.” Everything feels so homogenised now through social media. Even with cancer, there’s almost a way you’re supposed to do it. It’s shave the head, then somebody else shaves their head. But the reality for a lot of people isn’t kicking cancer’s ass. They’re shitting themselves, literally and figuratively. They’re trying to work themselves out, facing their mortality, and it’s ugly and it’s scary. Even if you don’t die, it’s kicked your ass. The sweet spot is honesty. When you’re honest, you give other people permission to be honest too. It’s like being in a meeting when somebody says, “Sorry, I don’t know what that means. What does that word mean?” Everyone else is relieved because they didn’t know either.

That’s the sweet spot for comedy. I also love the phrase that the audience don’t come to see you, they come to see themselves. My frustration comes from how pedestrian so many accepted ideas can become. As a comedian, your job is to say, “No, this is actually what happens in a long-term marriage,” or, “This is actually what happens on the school run.” That’s my frustration. But I don’t want anyone to think they’re coming to see a woman on the edge ranting. It’s certainly not that. It’s our delight in human fallibility.

“The sweet spot is honesty. When you’re honest, you give other people permission to be honest too.”

Going through cancer must reorder your priorities — what mattered less afterwards?

Getting on panel shows or following a particular career trajectory. We talk about me being a bit of a battler in life. From being a single mum on benefits to getting a first in English, then teaching, then getting a husband, everything felt hard won. I remember saying to my sister, “I’ve fought for everything in my life. I don’t think I’ve got the fight for this.” Cancer taught me that it wasn’t a fight. It was actually about slowing down, learning how to breathe, honouring myself and loving myself. I remember thinking, “Okay, I’ll let the doctors treat the cancer, and I’ll treat myself.” And I really meant it. I learned to honour myself. Being born aggy is just another way of saying I don’t want to change. It’s good. You need someone with the hump. Anger is an energy.

Did surviving something that serious make everyday annoyances feel ridiculous, or weirdly even more irritating?

Oh mate, you should see me if I’m held up at Bart’s Hospital for an appointment. I can’t bear incompetence, and I can’t bear things that aren’t allowed to be said. We can honour the fact that the NHS is underfunded and a receptionist can still be an absolute bitch.

Do you think audiences want polished comedians anymore, or just recognisable humans like yourself? Because you’re very recognisable in life, do you know what I mean?

Oh, you’ve got to have both. Michael McIntyre is a phenomenal comedian. He’s polished and he’s brilliant, but nobody would care if he wasn’t talking about things we can all recognise. You need both. I don’t want confessional authenticity unless you can polish a gag. I’m a brilliant gag writer, and if you’re not doing both, you’re not worthy of the title comedian.

When something annoys you, how quickly does your brain start turning it into material? Are we talking straight away, days later, or whenever?

Oh, it quickly becomes an anecdote the minute I go home and tell my husband about it. But this is the other thing. People say, “You can’t joke about this,” or, “You can’t joke about that.” We don’t joke, especially as British people, to minimise trauma. We joke to process trauma. There’s nothing you don’t joke about. It’s so wired into me that even the terrible things become material, because it’s a way of processing them and putting them somewhere safe within yourself.

“I’ll let the doctors treat the cancer, and I’ll treat myself.”

And lastly, if life finally became peaceful, would you still be funny?

Yeah. Oh gosh, yeah. Life is meant to be messy. Embrace it. I love something Gabor Maté says: good mental health isn’t about feeling good, it’s about being good at feeling. It’s about allowing all the sadness and everything else that comes with life.

There’ll always be death. There’ll always be loss. There’ll always be challenges. And there’ll always be diarrhoea, even in utopia, I’m sure. Those things are funny. That’s how you keep it light.

Yeah, I get it. I have to admit, I think you’re great at what you do.

You’re very good at what you do as well. Great questions.

Laura Smyth is a British comedian, writer and former teacher. She is touring the UK this year with her new show, Born Aggy. Tour dates and tickets info available via www.laurasmyth.com

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Interview by Carl Marsh

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