Well, they do say comedy is all about timing. This shortened version of Sara Pascoe’s last full-length show, just released as part of the BBC’s second Live from the BBC series, contains a chunk of material about the ups and downs of life with her boyfriend. The funny thing is that the last time I Sara Pascoe doing a club gig she was talking about having recently split up from the same boyfriend.
Which sort of casts a lot of the material in a different light. His lack of interest in sex, for instance. Or the fact that he took out life insurance – on her life. Or Pascoe’s difficulties conceiving, which I guess would be difficult if they aren’t having much sex.
Anyway, whatever the state of Pascoe’s love life this is a very funny show. In recent years the skilful comic seems to up gone up through the gears and now has stronger material than ever and an equally strong stage presence, making her one of the most exciting comic voices in the UK at the moment.
Her material here ranges from the painfully honest to the rather silly. And maybe even the rather silly is also painfully honest. She, for example, spent most of her life thinking that the mile high club meant doing a poo on a plane thanks to misunderstanding something her 'Uncle Trevor' told her. Oh, and by the way, her Uncle Trevor sounds like a right character.
Elsewhere she touches wittily on Brexit and suggests that life is complicated because choices are subjective. There is also a very cutting routine about her misgivings about Uber, which she says is like a “taxi but with judgement. You get a review at the end.”
The funniest bits are probably the sex bits, which, as I suggested, may be a clue to why her relationship ended. Pascoe certainly isn't going to be winning any hand job awards if her technique really is as she describes it here. But then again she also claims that she comes from a family of liars. She once, for example, got so engrossed in EastEnders she told her younger sister that she was her real mum. So maybe this whole show is one big fib. Maybe Sara Pascoe is happily married with three children and living in a big house in Essex and giving her husband perfect hand jobs. Somehow I doubt it though.
