When Susie McCabe’s signature silver quiff pops up on my Zoom screen, I don’t tell her right away that we’ve been face to face before.
It was winter 2023 when I saw Susie quite by accident at Dundee’s Whitehall Theatre.
The Glaswegian stand-up was a last-minute substitute headliner for a variety gig which can only be described as woefully undersold.
It was awkward. She knew it, and the 40-odd folk scattered across the first two rows of the 700-seater theatre knew it.
But it didn’t stop Susie from delivering a set so hilarious that the whole cringe-worthy ordeal of the night was worth it.
Now, Susie is looking forward to returning to Tayside, with her upcoming tour, The Merchant of Menace, stopping in Perth and Dundee.
“Perthshire is one of my favourite places in Scotland,” she gushes. “It’s incredibly beautiful, and the crowds in Perth have always been really supportive of me.
“And I always love gigging in Dundee because it’s the closest to Glasgow, in terms of the people and the type of city it is.
“Except it gets better weather. There’s actual blue skies there!”
‘If it’s a cheap laugh, I don’t see the point’
The last time she was in Dundee, I noticed Susie’s observations were razor sharp, but that her jokes were almost never about cutting people down.
As it turns out, that’s a conscious decision that the 44-year-old has made as her platform’s grown.
“If it’s a cheap laugh, I don’t see the point in having it,” she tells me.
“Actually getting to stand on stage and say stuff is a real privilege, and I always try to take responsibility for what comes out of my face.
“You need to question yourself, as a comic,” continues Susie, who also co-hosts podcast Here Comes The Guillotine with subversive Scot Frankie Boyle and rising star Christopher MacArthur-Boyd.
“Is the way I’m phrasing something going to make a joke divisive for no reason? Is there a different way to frame it? If I frame it that way, will it take out the humour – and if so, is the humour even funny?”
‘Posh people turn up like they’ve slept in a bin’
It’s interesting to hear Susie talk seriously about doubting herself.
On stage, she’s full of a certain swagger which no doubt helped her build a tidy career in the construction industry before she dived into comedy “on a drunken dare” aged 30.
“You wouldn’t be a comedian if you weren’t ravaged with self doubt,” she says wryly. “I wish all the time that I had the confidence of a mediocre man.”
Her new show, The Merchant of Menace, tackles that feeling of self-doubt, as Susie looks at the times she’s felt “out of place” since being catapulted into the shiny world of on-stage success.
She recounts a situation where she felt every bit of her own working class background when staying at a “posh” 5-star hotel during a tour.
“I felt dead out of place,” she admits. “You do that thing, when you’re not used to it, where you overdress, right?
“But posh people don’t overdress, they’ll literally turn up like they’ve slept in a bin.”
Newlywed Susie staying grounded despite success
In recent years, Susie’s become “more confident and comfortable” in such situations, as she’s stacked up enough successes to know she belongs in whatever room she’s in.
“If I’m in a room with a politician and a journalist and a broadcaster I’ve listened to all my life… there’s a time I would’ve went into myself,” Susie muses.
“But the fact is I’m there for a reason, so I do my bit. And what you realise is people are just people.”
Certainly Susie, who got married last year to wife Nicola, does not let her rising fame get to her head.
“I don’t think my life has changed with it,” she shrugs. “I think because I’ve still got the same pals, and I live in the same place, there’s been no great shift.”
Billy Connolly message is career highlight
In fact, only one ‘celebrity comic’ moment seems to have been truly life-changing for Susie, and that was receiving the second ever Spirit of Glasgow Award from Scottish comedy legend Billy Connolly this summer.
@glasgowcomedy We’ll just put this here incase you missed it…❤️ Billy Connolly’s amazing message to Susie McCabe Comedy at our ✨GICF Comedy Gala✨, annoucing her as the second winner of the Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award! #gicf24 #glasgowtiktom #glasgowtiktok #billyconnolly #susiemccabe #fyp
“He sent me a video when I won his award,” Susie grins. “He said my name, and that he actually laughed out load at my stuff – that I blew him sideways.
“And I was like: Well, that’s it. It doesn’t f****** matter what anyone else says or thinks, because that guy said I’m funny.”
Susie McCabe brings The Merchant of Menace to Perth Theatre on October 10 2024 and Dundee’s Gardyne Theatre on December 11 2024.
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