“It’s a brand new show where I explore my womanhood and the failure of me,” says Glaswegian comedian Susie McCabe of her new tour Femme Fatality.
“The disappointment, the suffering from impostor syndrome, all the way from the day I was born, being the youngest in the family, through to working on building sites.
How I really feel
“It’s about how sometimes I really feel I struggle to fit in with what societal parameters tell you to fit into, especially where I grew up, especially at the time when I grew up.”
Living in the 1980s and ‘90s, she notes, was a different time, and she hopes to “paint a picture for those who are too young to know what that was like, but also reaffirm it to people who remember.”
She has material about coming out as gay, and society’s attitudes to women in those days in general, which she saw first-hand when she worked on building sites as an electrical estimator prior to comedy.
Life on building sites
“I talk about the dynamic of the stuff that happened on building sites,” she says. “It makes you think, this is bananas, it just wouldn’t happen nowadays.
“Things like apprentices coming and confiding in me, and dealing with older men on the site, how my role was very different from anybody else’s.
“Then I talk about modern men and how they’re not like that, we have a lot of fun with all that.”
Comedy was the last thing on her mind in those days. “The arts wasn’t really an option growing up in the East End of Glasgow,” says McCabe.
“That was for posh people. When your parents haven’t had social mobility, they expect the same for you, and I never did any school shows or anything like that.”
After the death of a close friend from cancer, a conversation with another friend changed her life.
“We realised how short life was and that we should do something to scare ourselves. I said, I can’t jump out a plane, and he said, oh, you should go and do stand-up comedy because you make me laugh.
“That’s what I did with the intention of never doing it ever again, and now it seems to be my career.”
The time is right
That was in 2011, just before her 31st birthday, and since then she’s appeared on Have I Got News For You?, Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and Question Time, supported Jason Manford, John Bishop, Boyle and Bridges, and is a regular at the Edinburgh Festival. The time feels right for the next level of her breakthrough.
The show, says McCabe, is a lot of fun, but anyone among the many thousands who saw her showstopping compere turn at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay this year will know just what her many qualities as a comedian are.
She can be warm yet savage, inclusive yet brutal, and she’s always got an eye on the laugh at the end of the line.
“I’m very much looking forward to the tour and getting to see Scotland, which is a real bonus, “she says.
“We don’t always holiday in Scotland as a population, so we don’t get to see how beautiful our country is. It doesn’t matter what size the venue is, if your name’s on the door and people come and see you, that’s the greatest job in the world.”
Susie McCabe: Femme Fatality is at Perth Theatre on Friday and Saturday April 14 and 15. www.susiemccabe.com
