Love her or loathe her, there’s no denying Sarah Millican has given comedy a sturdy boot up the behind over the past 14 years.
Since bursting onto the scene at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2008, the Tyne and Wear-raised stand-up has garnered a massive fanbase on the back of her everywoman persona and trademark lewd material looking at relationships and the unruly female body.
Not plain sailing
The daughter of an electrical engineer employed in the South Tyneside pits, Millican worked in a job centre before setting out on her comedy journey.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, however. Her marriage ended in 2004 and she spent two-and-a-half years back living with her parents, during which time she was a frequent attendee at writing workshops held in her local theatres.
She began a relationship with her second husband and fellow comic Gary Delaney in 2006 and went on to turn her earlier setbacks to her own advantage in her debut Fringe show, which earned her the alternative festival’s best newcomer award.
A prattle merchant
Ribald material on the wider battle of the sexes cemented her growing reputation on her Edinburgh return in 2009, before the following year’s Chatterbox – a series of observations on the more dubious joys of living alone – saw her linking up with the capital’s influential Stand Comedy Club.
Always something of a prattle – rather than patter – merchant, Millican became a familiar face as far as the wider public was concerned through her regular television work in those breakthrough years.
Long before the BBC introduced its controversial female comedians quota in 2014 she was making appearances as a panellist on the likes of 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Mock The Week, Would I Lie To You?, QI, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and The Marriage Ref.
Sixth stand-up show
On radio, she adopted an agony aunt persona for her part-improvised Radio 4 series Sarah Millican’s Support Group, which started in 2010, and also had a stint as a regular co-host of satirical 5 Live news show 7 Day Sunday.
Taking a mocking look at the schedules, her BBC2 show The Sarah Millican Television Programme ran for three series, and more recently she’s returned to the airwaves as presenter of Radio 4 favourite Elephant In The Room.
Now aged 47, Millican resumed touring activities in late 2021 following the easing of pandemic restrictions – and, according to the road trip’s promotional puff, spending a year “writing jokes and growing her backside” – with her sixth stand-up show Bobby Dazzler.
On familiar ground
Her latest extensive run of shows kicks off with four Scottish dates – a sold-out set at Perth Concert Hall on Thursday followed by three nights at Glasgow’s SEC Armadillo.
According to reviewers who’ve already taken in Millican’s latest offering, fans of her previous work are unlikely to be disappointed – in other words, she’s very much on familiar ground.
Given that the promoter’s tour presis informs us we can look forward to learning about, among other things, “what happens when your mouth seals shut, how to throw poo over a wall, and a surprisingly funny smear test”, this probably isn’t a surprise.
On checking out Bobby Dazzler last month, the Guardian hailed it as “crude comedy with a baroque flourish”.
Tickets at sarahmillican.co.uk
